CIRA Accounting & Audits

CIRA Accounting & Audits

Common Interest Realty Associations, also known as CIRAs, are complex legal and financial entities. Condo financial management can be a challenging endeavor, and more CIRA administrators are choosing professional CIRA accounting services than ever before.

If you're the administrator of a realty company with a multi-family property association, a CIRA audit performed by a qualified and reputable certified public accounting firm, experienced in real estate accounting can help keep your finances in order.

When choosing a firm to perform a CIRA audit, only select the top specialists available. The certified public accountants (CPAs) and tax advisors at Miller & Company, LLP have the expertise you need for your CIRA accounting services. Experience the difference a proactive CIRA accounting professional can make for your organization.

CIRA Basics

A common interest realty association governs the interests of communities with a common purpose. CIRAs may oversee operations of residents in communities, such as:

• Homeowner associations
• Planned unit developments
• Timeshares
• Co-ops
• Condominiums

The association follows a set of rules that often are given over to a subcontracted property management company to fulfill. Members of the community fund the association through assessments on their dwellings.

A vast number of Americans participate in CIRAs. It’s estimated that about 12 percent of American households live in a community that’s part of a CIRA. The major characteristics of CIRA housing include:

• Ownership with the CIRA is divided into shares of stock, individual lot ownership or defined living spaces.
• Ownership of the common property is shared, and all owners are bound to covenants and restrictions through the association’s contract.
• Membership is automatic if the organization was legally established, adequately maintains the property and offers other services to its community.
• Owners fund their association through periodic assessments.

CIRA and Condo Accounting Services in Sarasota

The form of CIRA ownership usually results in accounting differences rather than CIRA operations. Your organization should rely, therefore, on CIRA accounting specialists to handle the financial statements, reporting duties and perform audits. The kind of ownership dictates the capitalization of the common property and how the accounting and disclosures should occur for maintenance and improvements.

Certified public accountants (CPAs) with a high level of knowledge about the industry and its standards, such as those at Miller & Company, must follow specified standards for the preparation and reporting on required financial statements. Functions they usually get involved with include:

• Strategic planning for use of funds
• Operational budgets
• Annual tax liabilities and tax filing
• Association audits
• Regular financial reporting to stakeholders and equity partners
• Bankruptcy
• Restructuring following insolvency
• Trustee duties

The owners and administrators of these entities are responsible for reporting on the financial health of their organizations. Unit owners or prospective owners, as well as lending institutions, need CPAs proficient in the standardized methods to prepare these financial reports.

Homeowners’ Association Audits

To effectively prepare required financial statements for a CIRA, an association audit is undertaken that covers a wide range of real estate and repair issues. An audit includes reports on:

• How common property is recognized and measured
• Which parcels of common property are described as assets on the CIRA balance sheet
• What kind of oversight the CIRA has over the care and preservation of the common property
• Restrictions on the sale and use of recognized common areas
• Level of funding required that must be put aside to make major repairs to community housing, such as roofs, in the future
• Estimates for the repairs and how those estimates were calculated
• Timelines for when repairs may occur
• CIRA compliance with their financial responsibilities
• Financial statements that prove the funding is properly accumulating
• Estimates of the value of properties

When performing an association audit, your CIRA accountant compares current findings with previous audits to ensure that the association guidelines have been followed and that all estimates and cost assumptions were accurate and consistent. The CPA records changes made to the financial records and receives written acknowledgment from the board and property management company that it has and continues to assume its contractual responsibilities.

Condo CPA Takes Care of Complicated Details

Because the details can be so complicated, you need an experienced CIRA Sarasota accounting firm to manage your assets and track investments for the owners and stakeholders of the communities.

The CIRA can’t sell common property, use it to pay liabilities or even increase the value of its other assets. As such, CIRA financial statement would not help anyone learn about the financial condition of it. But CIRAs do include common property as assets on a financial statement, and they must list their common properties as assets on their financial statements.

CIRA Accounting Services in NYC and DC

If you’re the manager of a CIRA, you need the best professional CIRA accounting services available for your next homeowners’ association audit. The rules and regulations for CIRA financial statements can seem somewhat arcane, and not every average condo CPA can produce the results you need.

Since 1997, the CPAs at Miller & Company, LLP have been providing the very best CIRA accounting services to their customers. Widely recognized for their expertise, they have won numerous industry awards. Their multilingual staff has offices in Queens, Manhattan, Washington DC and Sarasota, FL. Contact them today!

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