This is the third configuration bucket — the Budget Setup UI settings on the right-hand panel of the Budget Setup screen. They control how every budget is calculated and how the output workbook is shaped. (The other two buckets are the Vantaca-side prerequisites and the Configuration Questionnaire.)
Most settings are company-wide defaults — set them once and every association draft uses them. Pick any association in the preview dropdown to see a sample render update in real time before you run a real budget.
Fiscal year & history
- Fiscal Year Start Month — defines the budget year boundaries and which months count as closed actuals. Affects the numbers.
- Historical Actual Years (0–10; most teams choose 3) — how many prior-year actual columns appear on the sheet. More years gives the agent more context to project from. Affects layout; more years can improve projections.
Which sheets are produced
- Summary — a high-level tab. On/off.
- Mailing Sheet — a simplified one-page budget summary suited to mailing to owners. On/off.
- Maintenance Schedule — component-level maintenance projections. On/off.
- Assessment Schedule — a per-owner / per-unit breakdown of the assessment amount, useful when owners are billed a fixed amount per unit. On/off.
The four core sheets (Operating Budget, Reserve Budget, Proposed Year Monthly, Current Year Monthly) are always produced — see Reading the on-screen preview. A standalone Reserve Schedule sheet (a per-component funding schedule generated from your reserve study) is not currently available; see What's not supported (and what's new).
Budget columns
Toggle which columns appear on the budget sheet: Current Year Budget, YTD, Remaining, Projected, Proposed Budget, Variance (%), and Budget vs Projected Net Change (the proposed-vs-projected dollar change). You can rename and show/hide these, but adding columns beyond this built-in set isn't supported — see Modifying the draft.
Primary (source-of-truth) sheet
Choose which sheet holds the raw, editable proposed numbers that the others derive from: Proposed Year Monthly (default), Current Year Monthly, or Annual Budget. This decides where you make edits and how the Remaining column is summed. Affects layout and where you edit.
This setting is not intended to change any calculated totals (like assessment income) — only where you edit and how the Remaining column is summed. If you notice a calculated total change when you switch it, that's unexpected; email ask@hoai.com with the association and both settings so it can be looked into.
GL inclusion
- Expense GL inclusion — three options: All budget GLs (every expense GL with a budget for this association, regardless of activity), Current + prior-year activity (GLs with activity in the current or a prior year), or Current-year activity only (GLs with activity in the current year only). Narrower options produce a leaner sheet. Affects which rows appear.
- Income GL inclusion — two options: Only budgeted income GLs (income GLs with a non-zero approved budget), or Budgeted + income GLs with activity (also includes income GLs with current-year activity, even without a budget). Use the latter when you need the draft to reconcile to the latest financial report. Affects which income rows appear.
Projection thresholds
Two safeguards control when the agent trusts current-year actuals to build the Projected column versus falling back to the approved budget. They apply to expense GLs that have an approved budget; income lines and lines with no approved budget are unaffected, and assessment / reserve-contribution lines are always budget-anchored.
- Minimum months of actuals (default 5) — if fewer than this many closed months of the current year have posted, the agent projects that GL from the approved budget instead of extrapolating from thin actuals.
- Minimum actual-to-budget ratio (default 25%) — if a GL’s actuals are running below this share of its budget so far this year (average monthly actual ÷ average monthly budget through the latest closed month), the agent falls back to the approved budget rather than projecting an unrealistically low full year.
These are one-directional safeguards: they can only make a projection more conservative (fall back to the approved budget) when actuals are sparse or unusually low. They do not force the agent to extrapolate — the projection method itself (for example “use the historical average from past years”) comes from the Configuration Questionnaire, not these thresholds. Setting both to their minimums (1 month / 0%) effectively turns the safeguards off, so the agent uses whatever method the questionnaire and its own analysis select. Raise them to make the agent lean on the approved budget more readily early in the fiscal year or for associations with little history — they stop one or two unusual months from distorting the whole projection. See Projection methods.
Monthly-sheet variance
Optionally add Variance ($) and Variance (%) columns to the monthly sheets, not just the annual sheet. Affects layout.
Theming
Apply a preset or set custom colors, fonts, and header styling so the workbook matches your company's brand. Affects layout only.
Workbook protection (cell locking)
When protection is on, the rendered workbook locks the formula and actual cells and leaves the proposed-year cells editable, so a reviewer can change the proposal without breaking the linked formulas. Subtotal and total rows stay locked. Affects the output workbook only.
What each setting affects — quick reference
| Setting | Affects the numbers | Affects layout / display | Re-run to apply |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fiscal Year Start Month | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Historical Actual Years | Indirectly | Yes | Yes |
| Sheets (Summary / Mailing / Maintenance) | No | Yes | Yes |
| Budget columns | No | Yes | No (toggle in preview) |
| Primary sheet | No | Yes | Yes |
| GL inclusion (expense / income) | Yes (which rows) | Yes | Yes |
| Projection thresholds | Yes | No | Yes |
| Monthly-sheet variance | No | Yes | Yes |
| Theming | No | Yes | No |
| Workbook protection | No | Yes (locking) | Yes |
See it in action in the worked example, which flips one setting and shows the before/after.
A note on availability: the exact settings you see can depend on your company's configuration — some teams have a subset enabled. If a setting described here isn't visible, your HOAi contact can confirm whether it's enabled for your company. Side-by-side budget scenarios (multiple % increases / reserve-funding levels) are not currently available; see What's not supported (and what's new).
↩ Part of Setup & configuration · Budgets — Start here
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