msts 115 basic accounting - mystrata - an...

STUDENT WORKBOOK

MSTS 115 BASIC ACCOUNTING

Copyright © Mystrata Pty Limited 2014

Version 1.0 (June 2014)


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COURSE OUTLINE CONTENTS

1.0 An Introduction to Accounting in Strataware.....................................................................3

2.0 Interaction between Ledgers ............................................................................................3

2.1 General Ledger .............................................................................................................................. 4

2.2 Unit Ledgers................................................................................................................................... 5

3.0 Receipting Service Charges ...............................................................................................6

4.0 Locating previous Receipts and Invoices .......................................................................... 10

4.1 Locating Receipts for Service Charges in the General Ledger ..................................................... 10

4.2 Locating Receipts for Service Charges in the Unit Ledger ........................................................... 12

4.3 View Issued Invoices .................................................................................................................... 15

5.0 Statements of Account for Individual Units ..................................................................... 17

6.0 Reporting ....................................................................................................................... 19

6.1 Report Printing ............................................................................................................................ 19

6.2 Aged Service Charge Statement .................................................................................................. 19

Exclude unpresented transactions ................................................................................................ 20

6.3 Daily Collection Report ................................................................................................................ 21

6.4 Income and Expenditure Statement ........................................................................................... 22

7.0 Budgeting ....................................................................................................................... 23


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1.0 AN INTRODUCTION TO ACCOUNTING IN STRATAWARE

The accounting modules within Strataware have been developed specifically for the purpose of

running strata titled community (owners association) accounts. As such many standard accounting

procedures have been removed (such as ‘pay roll’) in order to create a streamlined, easy to use and

highly automated accounting system.

Further to the usability of the accounting system itself, the reports generated by the system have

also evolved over the years to be easy to read for community managers, home owners and auditors

alike. Because of this some reports can be shown in various formats, including some reports that

could be considered ‘non-standard’ from a strict accounting perspective.

It is also important to note that some accounting information in Strataware is published to the

MyCommunity web portals and is visible to owners and board members.

2.0 INTERACTION BETWEEN LEDGERS

Strataware comprises four main account ledgers (there are more than four in total).

These are:

1. General Ledger

2. Unit Ledgers

3. Accounts Receivable Ledger

4. Accounts Payable Ledger

The interaction between them is automated, some examples of their interaction include:

Action: A service charge is receipted in the General Ledger.

Effect: It appears in that apartments Unit Ledger.


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2.1 GENERAL LEDGER

The General Ledger (“GL”) in Strataware is the closest thing to a cash ledger you will find in the

system, in most cases it should closely resemble the bank statement with the exception of post-

dated and uncleared cheques/payments.

Whenever you transact in the GL you affect cash, ether by paying a bill (expense) or receipting

revenues (income).


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2.2 UNIT LEDGERS

Unit Ledgers are what non-strata systems would refer to as a “Customer Account”,

this terminology is technically incorrect as the “unit” is actually liable for the debt,

not the owner.

Most transactions in the Unit Ledgers are populated from either the General Ledger

(payments) or the service charge invoicing system (invoices). These items cannot be

edited from the Unit Ledger as they are just a representation of a record in another

ledger.

The only entries that can be made directly into a Unit Ledger are journals.


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3.0 RECEIPTING SERVICE CHARGES

Help Desk Article:

http://support.mystrata.com/entries/23370001-Receipting-levies-service-charge

1. Navigate to the Unit Ledger “Property> General Details> Unit Details > View Selected SC

Ledger”

Or alternatively;

“Property > Ledgers > Select the Unit Ledger” from the drop down menu.

http://support.mystrata.com/entries/23370001-Receipting-levies-service-charge


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2. Click NEW in the command bar

3. Select Receipt Service Charge


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4. Complete the transaction details and select SAVE in the command bar

5. If the owner of the unit has a valid email address in the system, you will prompted to send a

copy of the receipt via email.


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6. Clicking on "OK" will send the receipt by email. Clicking on “Cancel" will cancel sending the

receipt by email - but still save the transaction.


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4.0 LOCATING PREVIOUS RECEIPTS AND INVOICES

Strataware stores all service charge invoices sent out and all receipts created in its document

management system. On regular occasions you will need to locate and resend these documents to

owners for their information.

It should also be remembered that all of these details for owners can also be found on

MyCommunity when an owner logs in and looks at the ‘My Service Charges’ section.

4.1 LOCATING RECEIPTS FOR SERVICE CHARGES IN THE GENERAL LEDGER

1. Navigate to the General Ledger by clicking on Property > Accounts > Ledgers.

2. Locate the Receipt for the Unit in the transaction list

3. The receipt for the transaction is located in the attached documents box on the bottom right of

the screen

4. You can click on the receipt to view or send out to the owner using the icons below the box.

5. If the receipt is not in the attached documents box click Print in the command bar and select

Print Receipt


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6. Once the print preview has come to screen you can select to send or save the document.


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4.2 LOCATING RECEIPTS FOR SERVICE CHARGES IN THE UNIT LEDGER

1. Navigate to the Unit Ledger by clicking on Property > Accounts > Ledgers and selecting the

relevant unit from the drop down menu

or you can choose the View Selected SC Ledger from the Unit Details screen


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2. Locate the Payment for the Unit in the ledger and click on it

3. The receipt for the transaction is located in the attached documents box on the bottom right of

the screen

4. You can click on the receipt to view or send out to the owner using the icons below the box.


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4.3 VIEW ISSUED INVOICES

1. Navigate to Property > Service Charges> View Issued

2. Select the unit (top of the screen) and the invoice issued (bottom of the screen) and the invoice

will be located in the Attached Documents box located in the bottom right hand side.

It should also be noted that any invoice will also be an attached document in the unit ledger screen


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5.0 STATEMENTS OF ACCOUNT FOR INDIVIDUAL UNITS

1. Navigate to the Unit Ledger screen using either of the methods described in previous steps

2. Use the Search/ Filter function to amend your dates, if necessary

3. Once dates have been selected click Print on the command bar and the statement will print

to screen


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4. From the print preview screen you can email, save or print the document for the owner.


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6.0 REPORTING

All reports, financial and otherwise, for a property are access under the “Property > Reports” menu.

The available financial reports include:

Annual Financial Statement

Income and Expenditure Statement

Balance Sheet

Cash Flow Statement

General Ledger Transaction List

Other Accounts (ledgers for Investment fund for example)

Cash Payments Journal

Proposed Annual Budget

Unpresented Bank Transaction Report (reconciliation report)

Aged Creditors

Accounts Payable Transaction List

Aged Debtors

Debtor Statements

Levy Position Statement – All Lots

Levy Statement

Aged Levy Statement

Other Levies Issued (one off expenses)

Each report has various options such as date range, formatting and various options specific to the

report.

6.1 REPORT PRINTING

1. Select a report in the list

2. Set the parameters of the report in the “Options” panel

3. Click “Print” in the command bar

4. Once you have printed/saved/emailed your report click the “Close” button to close the print

preview screen

6.2 AGED SERVICE CHARGE STATEMENT

There are various aged debtor reports, the most important of which is the “Aged Service Charge

Statement” – this is the report that will match your “Aged service charges” line item on your balance

sheet and is the only aged debtor’s report that should be submitted with your financial statements.

As with most of our reports there are various options available such as the ability to show the

report based on “days” or “periods”. However the most important option is the “Exclude

unpresented transactions” tick box.


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Exclude unpresented transactions This box needs to be ticked in order for the report to match the “Aged service charges” line item

on the balance sheet.

If un-ticked the report will include all unpresented (un-reconciled) transactions, including post-

dated cheques (“PDC”). This is useful for internal collection procedures, however for the

purposes of generating financial statements unpresented transaction cannot be considered as

assets.


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6.3 DAILY COLLECTION REPORT

The daily collection report can be used for reconciling amounts received by the cashiers when

handed over to the cashiers.


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6.4 INCOME AND EXPENDITURE STATEMENT


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7.0 BUDGETING

Budgeting within Strataware is important as it enables reports to be generated comparing budget

verse actual expenditure for a period. The process of creating a budget also forms a chart of

accounts for the property.

Budgets are created and managed in the “Budgets” screen (Property > Accounts > Budgets).

To create a new budget:

1. Navigate to the Budgets screen

2. Click the “New” button in the command bar

3. You will be prompted to choose the financial year that you wish to budget for, select the

appropriate year from the drop down and click “OK”

4. You can now add an optional description to your budget using the “Budget Description” box

at the top of the screen


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5. Add categories to the Admin/General fund and Sinking/Reserve fund expense sections using

the “+” buttons

6. Once clicked the system chart of accounts will be displayed, find a category you wish to add

and click on it to insert

7. Repeat above process for all required categories

Tip: Account codes have head and sub categories. If an arrow is next to a category, click it to view

available sub categories.

Tip: For new buildings, use the “Add Standard Account Categories” button (top right) to populate

your budget with commonly used account categories.

8. When all categories are in place enter the budgeted amount in the “This Yrs Bdgt” columns


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9. If you don’t want to use a category, simply leave its budget value at “0.00” and it will be

removed when the budget is saved

10. Once all categories have been budgeted for click the “Summary” tab

Note: The “Summary” tab is used to tweak your budget by way of opening balances and

surplus/contingency values.

11. Complete “Summary” sections for both funds. You can change the:

a. Opening bank balance

b. Amount of “planned reserve” at end of period (sometimes referred to as

“contingency”)

c. Amount to raise (per fund)

d. Amounts to raise per period


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12. Once complete click the “Save” button in the command bar

13. The process of saving a budget creates an official budget PDF for distribution or publication,

there are a number of options available for this PDF including:

a. Annexure attachments

b. File name type

c. File name


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14. Once saved the PDF will be ‘attached’ to the budget and is available in the “Attached

Documents” panel


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Mystrata Pty Limited

Phone: +61 7 3839 3199

Fax: +61 7 3036 6143

Mystrata Middle East FZ LLC

Phone: +971 4 422 5747

Fax: +971 4 422 4746

Mystrata Malaysia Sdn Bhd

Phone: +603 6201 2127

Fax: +603 6201 0240

Mystrata South Africa Pty Limited

Phone: +27 21 202 9903

Fax: +27 21 686 3951

Since 2001, Mystrata has been developing and supporting great technology for strata and

community title properties. Our software is used by professional managers, developers, board

members, property owners and tenants throughout Australia and the Middle East.

Learn more about Mystrata at www.mystrata.com or on your favourite social media site.

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