The dates behind a building's accounts, and how they fit together

Which dates does a building have, and what does each one decide?

Most confusion comes from treating these dates as one "start date". They answer different questions, and each is set in a different place. The table is the short version; the sections below explain each row.

Commencement of contract: when your management began

The commencement of contract is the day your company, or the committee, took over the building. Owners see it as "Managed since" in the portal. It is also the default start date for a unit's first owners, so owners of a building taken over mid-year can still see the statements from the start of your management.

It never changes an amount. It does not start a levy, does not open a statement period, and says nothing about which old payments are counted. Those questions belong to the opening balance date. The two are often a day apart, a handover on 1 January with balances as at 31 December, but they need not be. A handover in January with the previous manager's figures as at 31 December is normal.

Opening balance date: the line under the old books

When you take over a building, you enter what each unit owes, or has in credit, for common expenses and the reserve fund. Those figures are only true as at a date. The opening balance date is that date: the balances are as at the end of that day, and every payment, levy and invoice up to and including it is already inside them.

From then on, Domera refuses anything dated on or before it that would count the same money twice. That covers a payment, a levy period, a statement period and a bank line to match. Bank lines from those days are still imported, so the bank record stays complete, but they are marked "In opening balance" and never matched. An invoice the previous manager never charged to owners is the exception. You can record it if you confirm it is not included in the opening balances, and the confirmation is kept with the expense.

There is one date per building, because the bank account belongs to the building. You can change it until the first statement is finalized. Domera lists anything already recorded that the new date would contradict before it saves.

First levy months: common expenses and the reserve fund

Levies are whole periods, so you choose a month, not a day. In budget levy mode, the common expenses levy is posted each month from the most recent approved budget: each budget line divided by 12 and allocated by that category's own allocation method. The reserve fund levy is posted at the frequency you set, monthly, quarterly, twice a year or yearly, starting in the first levy month.

Both must start after the opening balance date, because the opening balances already contain the months before it. With balances as at 31 December 2025, January 2026 is the first month you can choose. With balances as at 15 January 2026, it is February: a January levy would charge 1 to 15 January twice. Months already covered are greyed out in the picker, which is why an opening balance date on the last day of a month works best.

Levies are never posted into a month a finalized statement has closed. Moving a start month earlier does not bill closed months a second time.

Ownership dates: who was the owner, and when

Charges belong to the unit, not to the person. Ownership dates decide who a statement is addressed to, who can read it in the portal, and how a payment is split between co-owners on the day it was received. They never change what the unit is billed.

A start date cannot be in the future, because an ownership without an end date is the current one, and a sale entered early would make the buyer liable from the day it was typed in. When a unit is sold, the seller's ownership ends the day before the transfer date and the buyer's begins on it. The transfer is refused while the seller has dues outstanding; a clearance certificate is the usual evidence that they are settled. Each owner sees the statements whose period overlaps their own ownership. A seller keeps their history, and a buyer never sees months that ended before they arrived.

Invoice, payment and statement dates

Statements are monthly, and the first one must start after the opening balance date. Its opening line is the balance you entered. Each later statement opens with the previous statement's closing balance.

Two everyday dates follow one rule: an item is billed or credited once, on the first statement generated after it is recorded. An invoice dated in a month whose statement is already final is billed as a catch-up charge on the next statement. A payment recorded late, but dated inside a closed month, is credited the same way. Neither is lost, and neither is counted twice.

The one hard boundary is the opening balance date. Anything dated on or before it is refused rather than caught up, because the opening balances already contain it.