Keeping accurate, timely, accessible and meaningful financial records forms a foundation for your community association that supports good decisions. From its early days, Trestle Community Management has been recognized for providing community association financial management that is among the best in the region.
Trestle is one of a very few firms in the Puget Sound region that practices both accrual-basis accounting and fund-based reporting. Both of these practices have substantial advantages as described below.These two practices combined with other requirements may enable your association to save 50% on federal income taxes.
The key accounting and bookkeeping practices that make our financial management service among the best in the region are:
- Accrual-basis Accounting. Accrual-basis accounting provides a much more accurate and useful snapshot of an association’s financial status than the cash-basis accounting still practiced by some management companies in the region. Unlike cash-basis accounting in which assessments and other income are recorded when received and expenses are recorded when a check is written (fundamentally similar to the way you manage your personal checking account), accrual-basis accounting recognizes assessments and other income when earned (but not necessarily received) and expenses when incurred (but not necessarily paid). Washington law requires that associations provide accrual-basis financial statements to prospective buyers of condominium units as part of the resale certificate.
- Fund-based Reporting. Fund-based reporting separates the financial transactions of the operating fund, the replacement fund (also known as the reserve fund) and other special funds utilized by the association into either separate reports or into separate columns on key financial reports. Fund-based reporting greatly enhances the readability of the financial statements and provides a much clearer picture of replacement fund activity. Though not required, fund-based reporting is recommended for community associations by the AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants).
- Easy to read reports. The financial reports provided to your association are among the easiest to read in the industry. Trestle has received great feedback from both Boards of Directors and accounting professionals on the readability of the provided reports.
- Financial statements are prepared by your Community Manager. As a result, your Community Manager knows how to interpret your community’s financial statements and understands the financial status of your community. “I’ll have to get back to you on that” will be a less frequent reply to questions about your association’s financial statements or transactions.
Let Trestle Community Management manage your association's financial matters!