Uploading starting financials to the system is a 3 step process that we recommend doing in order. Throughout these instructions we refer to your PayHOA start date. The start date is the date that you'd like to start keeping records in PayHOA, including individual invoices, payments, and bank transactions. The date immediately preceding this is the date that you’ll use for your starting balances. In this example, we'll use 07/01/2025 as the start date, making the day immediately preceding the start date 6/30/2025. You should be prepared with financials from your previous system as of the date immediately preceding your start date, consisting of a Balance Sheet, P&L or Income Statement if you are starting mid-fiscal year, as well as a breakdown of Accounts Receivable and Prepaids by unit.
Before you start you’ll want to make sure you are set to the correct accounting basis. You can set this in Org Settings > Preferences > Report Preferences.
1. If you have not yet added your units you can import your people, units, and unit starting balances by going to Units > Add Units > Import Owners and Units. There is a sample file on that page that you can use if you’d like. Our support team is also happy to do this step for you, if you’d like to send us the file. This is the quickest and easiest way to add starting balances and prepaids to your units. In the starting balance date column you will set that date as of the date immediately preceding your start date, which would be 6/30/2025 in this example.
If you have already entered your units but have not entered the starting balances of those units, those can be entered individually by adding invoices for balances owed and payments for prepayments. Be sure to use the date immediately preceding your start date as the active date of the invoices and as the payment date on the payments.
2. Next you will enter your starting balance for balance sheet accounts as of the date immediately preceding your start date in Budgets > Edit Categories. This is also the time that you will customize your Chart of Accounts in PayHOA. From this page you’ll be able to add, delete, or edit your Chart of Accounts by going to each account section > Actions > Edit. If you’ve already added starting balance invoices, you will have selected an invoice category for those invoices. If you’d like to change the name of that income category you can do so at this time. For each account that you add or edit you will add in a starting balance. That starting balance should be as of the date immediately preceding your start date, in this example 6/30/2025, and with the balance seen on your financials as of this date. If your PayHOA start date is the first day in your fiscal year, you should enter these starting balances post-closing.
Accrual Note: you will not be entering in any starting balances for Accounts Receivables or Prepaids here, as that was taken care of in step 1 and will be pulled directly from the units.
3. If you are starting PayHOA mid-fiscal year you will have some income and expenses already booked for the current year. To get your year-to-date income and expenses in the system we recommend creating a journal entry with your Opening Balance equity as an offset like the one described below!
To add the journal, hop to the Transactions tab > blue actions > add journal! Add that starting balance journal entry dated as of the date immediately preceding your start date, in this example 6/30/2025. Your bank account balance will not be affected by this entry, since that balance was also entered as of 6/30/2025. You will add in a debit or a credit for each line item on your P&L, crediting positive income accounts and debiting positive expense accounts. You will then enter the amount of your current Net Profit/(Loss), using a debit for a positive Net Profit and a credit for a Net Loss. You will enter that amount to your Opening Balance equity.
Note: if you just edited your Chart of Accounts in step 2, you may need to clear your cache and refresh your screen for any new income or expense categories to appear in Transactions.