Start from your own month
Write down what happens between the first invoice and the last statement: who allocates, by which share, who approves, how payments are posted, who answers owners. Time each step for one building. For most buildings across Europe the two long steps are the allocation and the statements; in Cyprus a third is the clearance certificate before a sale. The software you choose should run those steps from rules you set once — the method per category, the recurring templates, the statement format — and leave you the approval.
What is specific to Cyprus, and what is not
The mechanics are European: an invoice, a share per unit, a statement, a reserve. The specifics are local. In Cyprus the share is usually expressed per mille from the title deed, the committee is the management committee under Cap. 224, the reserve fund is the practice for major works, and a clearance certificate is expected before a transfer at the Land Registry — confirm the current requirement with the District Lands Office. Ask whether the software models these directly: per-mille shares, a lift share with the ground floor at zero, a reserve fund with its own balances, and a clearance certificate from the last finalised statement.
Let owners look it up
Every balance request that reaches the office is a lookup the owner could have done. Ask whether owners get a portal, what it shows (statements as PDF, both fund balances, payments, documents, compliance status), whether it is scoped to their units in the database, and whether owners without an account still receive the statement by email. Owners abroad — a large share in Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca — should read the same figures as an owner living in the building.
Moving your data
Ask exactly what can be imported and what must be entered. In Domera, for example, buildings, units and owners are set up in a six-step wizard and opening balances per unit are imported from CSV; bulk import of the unit list is not yet available. Ask any vendor the same question and take the answer in writing. Plan to run one building for one month in parallel with your current process and compare the statements line by line before moving the rest.
Phones, tablets and the field
Managers photograph invoices on site, and committee members check balances from the sofa. A website that works on a phone — with tap targets large enough to use one-handed — covers both without an app store. Check that a supplier invoice can be photographed and read into a draft expense from the phone, and that the owner portal renders on a small screen.
Room to grow, and to leave
Ask about limits: buildings, units, users, storage. Ask whether managers can be scoped to their buildings as the team grows. Ask what you can export — statements, ledgers, documents, the audit trail — should you ever leave. The export answer tells you how the vendor thinks about your data.