Two different numbers get called "the cash" in a condo, and confusing them is the first thing that trips people up in CondoAide. This guide is about the first one: a fund's opening balance, meaning what the fund held on the first day of the fiscal year. The second — what the bank accounts actually hold — is covered at the end.
Despite what the screen sometimes suggests, these balances are not frozen once entered.
Editing the opening balances
- Open Accounting, under Finances in the left-hand menu.
- Check the fiscal year shown in the toolbar at the top of the page. Balances belong to a specific year: fixing 2026 changes nothing in 2025.
- Click Edit opening balances. On a narrow screen the button folds into the Fiscal year actions menu, behind the three dots.
- Enter the amounts: Opening balance — Operating fund, Contingency fund, Self-insurance fund. Each field expects the balance on the first day of the year.
- Save. The cards on the page and the financial statements recalculate immediately.
There is no deadline and no lock. As long as the year is open, this dialog stays the right way in, including after hundreds of transactions have been recorded.
An empty field and a zero do not mean the same thing
This is the easiest distinction to miss, and it is deliberate.
- Empty field: the balance has not been established. CondoAide assumes nothing and refuses to display a figure it does not know.
- Zero: you are declaring that the fund was empty on the first day of the year. That zero becomes a real starting point in the calculation.
Leave the field empty while you are still hunting for the number. A zero typed "for now" is an assertion, and it travels all the way to the financial statements.
Do not record the starting amount as income
This is the most common reflex, and the one to avoid: a treasurer who cannot find where to enter the starting cash usually ends up booking it as money coming in.
An amount the syndicate already held is not revenue for the year. Recorded that way it inflates every income figure, distorts each comparison with the adopted budget, and makes the income statement impossible to read. Opening balances exist to give that amount the place it belongs.
When the button is missing
Three possible causes, in the order worth checking.
The fiscal year is closed. A closed year cannot be edited — that is what closing means. Open the Fiscal year actions menu, choose Reopen Year, make the correction, then close it again. One caution: if the following year already exists, its opening balance was carried over at closing time, and fixing the earlier year does not retroactively update it. Check both.
No fiscal year exists yet. Opening balances belong to a year; with no year there is nothing to open. Create one first, from the same toolbar.
Your role does not allow managing finances. The button is shown only to people authorised to manage the syndicate's finances. Ask a syndicate administrator for access.
The other cash figure: what the accounts hold
The opening balance describes what a fund owns according to the ledger. It says nothing about where the money actually sits.
For that, CondoAide keeps a register of the syndicate's bank accounts, each tied to a fund, with the balance observed on a given date. The Accounting page then compares the two and shows the gap. A contingency fund that owns $200,000 while its term deposits hold only $175,000 is not necessarily an error: it is usually contingency money left in the operating account, which the board has every reason to know about.
While no account is registered, the cash position is unknown, not zero. CondoAide shows "—" rather than an accusing gap calculated against nothing.