Cash accounts

Every dollar your HOA collects, spends, or refunds belongs to a real cash bucket. The Operating checking account. The Reserve savings account. Maybe a CD. Maybe petty cash. Cash accounts in HomeHerald are how the system tracks which bucket each transaction belongs to, so the live balance per account matches your real bank statement and month end reconciliation works.

Where to find it

Finances > Accounts in the admin sidebar.

You’ll see a table with one row per account, showing the name and kind, bank details (if entered), opening balance, and live current balance. The first time you visit, the system has likely auto-created an “Operating Account” for you, so it can route transactions somewhere sensible from day one.

The four kinds

When you add or edit an account, you pick a kind:

• Operating is your primary checking account. Dues come in, day to day vendor bills go out. Most HOAs have exactly one.
• Reserve is the long term savings account, typically for capital improvements (roof replacement, road repaving, pool resurfacing).
• Petty Cash is rare for HOAs. Use it if you have a small physical cash float.
• Other is the catch all. CDs, money market accounts, second checking, anything that holds money but doesn’t fit the first three.

Stripe and PayPal are intentionally not in the list. They’re payment methods, not cash buckets. When residents pay through Stripe, the payment is recorded in your default account on the charge date. Stripe’s payout to your bank arrives a few days later, which is too small a gap to need its own account in the books.

Setting up your first account

The first time you visit Finances > Accounts, you’ll likely see an auto created “Operating Account” with a $0 opening balance.

1. Click the pencil icon to edit it.
2. Update the name to match what you call it (“BoA Checking - x4521” works well).
3. Enter the bank name and the last 4 digits of the account number (these are for your reference, not for any electronic linking).
4. Set the Opening Balance and As Of date. Use the balance from a bank statement on a clean date (typically the last month end before you started using HomeHerald).
5. Save.

Repeat for any other accounts you have. Reserve fund? Add it. CD? Add it (kind Other).

Adding more accounts

Click Add at the top right of the page.

The form asks for the same fields: Name, Type, Bank, Last 4, Opening Balance, As Of, and optional Notes. Save creates the account.

Live balance

The Current Balance column updates whenever a new transaction is recorded. The math is straightforward:

Opening Balance + Sum of all cash impacts on this account = Current Balance

Cash impacts include resident payments in, expenses out, refunds out, processing fees out, and any inter account transfers. Charges (DUES, FINE, ASSESSMENT, BOOKING_FEE) don’t affect cash balance because they’re accounts receivable, not cash. They show up on the property ledger and the AR Aging report.

Account Integrity Audit

Above the accounts table on Finances > Accounts, expand the Account Integrity Audit panel. The audit runs when you open it; click Re-run Audit to run it again. The system checks:

• Every cash event has an accountId tagged. Records missing one count as an issue.
• Every paid expense has an accountId tagged.
• Inter account transfer pairs balance to zero (if you’ve recorded any transfers).
• Sum of account balances equals sum of all cash impacts.

A green “Clean” chip means your books are mathematically consistent. An amber “Issues” chip means something needs attention, and the panel will tell you exactly what.

If the audit finds records with no account (legacy data from before HomeHerald tagged cash events to accounts), a Fix N untagged records button appears. Any admin or board member can click it. It stamps every untagged record with your default account and is safe to re-run.

Inter account transfers

When you move money between two of your accounts (year end Operating to Reserve sweep, for example), click Transfer at the top right of the page.

The modal asks for From and To accounts, amount, date, and an optional description. On Save, the system writes a paired transfer record: outflow on the source, matching inflow on the destination, sharing a transfer group ID. Your account balances move equal and opposite. Resident balances aren’t affected (transfers are bank to bank, not on anyone’s ledger).

Deactivating an account

Closed your old checking account? Click the Power icon on its row to deactivate it. Inactive accounts:

• Stay in the database with their full transaction history (so the audit trail is preserved).
• Show with reduced opacity in the table.
• Don’t appear in dropdowns when adding new transactions.
• Are excluded from the Cash Position tile on the Dashboard.

You can reactivate any time with the same Power icon.

Where each transaction shows up

Once you have accounts set up, every cash event in the system shows which account it touched. On Finances > Transactions, each row has a colored chip (“OPERATING”, “RESERVE”, etc.) naming the account. You can also filter the transactions list by account using the dropdown at the top, including an Untagged (no account) option.

What “system default” means

One account in your community is marked as the system default. New transactions written by the system without an explicit account selection (Stripe payments, manual payments recorded without picking an account) route to this account. You set it with the Default account for incoming transactions checkbox when editing an account.

By default, the system default is the auto created Operating account. You can rename or update it freely (changing the bank name, last 4, opening balance) but if you create new accounts you should leave the default flag on the one that represents your primary checking.

What’s next

With accounts set up:

• See your live cash position any time on the Dashboard (the Cash Position tile).
• Financial reports are at Finances > Reports (Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss, General Ledger, AR Aging, AP Aging, Budget vs Actual, Reconciliations).
• Month end reconciliation against your bank statement is per account, accessed from the Reconcile button on each row of the Accounts table.