Budget Basics
This is the annual income and expense plan that guides property decisions.
What is a budget?
The difference between budget and actual, highlighting issues to address.
What is a variance?
Rent, subsidy, and fees are examples of this.
What is income?
Payroll, utilities, supplies, and repairs are examples of this.
What are expenses?
This clearly defines the work required, materials, timeline, access needs, and completion standards.
What is a scope of work?
These are uncollectible balances that require review and prevention
What are Write-Offs?
This should be documented when a line item is over budget.
What is the reason and corrective action?
This is lost rent from empty units.
What is vacancy loss?
Costs like overtime, supplies, and call-outs that the site team can influence.
What are controllable expenses?
A roof, boiler, paving, or major system replacement belong to this type of cost requiring planning and approval.
What is a capital expense?
This per-unit goal helps teams measure whether property costs are staying within target.
What is cost per unit?
Following variance review this is created so follow-up does not get missed.
What is an action item?
This happens when rent or charges are past due and not collected on time.
What is delinquency?
Taxes, insurance, and debt service are examples of expenses with limited site control.
What are non-controllable expenses?
Work should not begin until this is completed with required vendor documents, insurance, and approvals.
What is a purchase order or contract?
Lost rent from empty units, such as one vacant $3,000 apartment.
What is Vacancy Loss?
This is what to do when investigating and analyzing variance reports to drill all the way down to the invoice in Yardi Voyager.
What is "just keep clicking"?
These unpaid charges may eventually reduce income if they are unlikely to be collected.
What is bad debt?
Marketing expenses were folded into this category instead.
What is Advertising?
This document helps compare vendor pricing, scope, timing, exclusions, and warranty information.
What is a bid sheet?
Charges unlikely to ever be collected, which lower income.
What is Bad Debt?
Beyond explaining overages, variance reports should also be scanned for these opportunities to recover costs.
What are reimbursement opportunities?
Before resorting to this costly step over unpaid rent, speak with the resident first and also make sure the related fees are actually being posted.
What are legal fees?
The recommended budget amount for Fines and Penalties.
What is $0?
If you can't get reimbursed for the work, it isn't a capital project — it's this instead.
What is an operating expense?