Receipt review by the advisory board: from the sample to the audit note

This is how the receipt review (Belegprüfung) goes in many places. Mr Kaiser, who chairs the advisory board of the Lindenhof association, books an appointment in March. He comes to the office with his deputy, and the clerk puts last year's binders on the table. After two hours the two of them have seen the large invoices and asked three questions. The clerk answers two on the spot. The third, about a gutter cleaning invoice that looks like it was booked twice, she wants to look into. The answer reaches Mr Kaiser by email four weeks later. Whether it ever reaches his deputy, nobody knows.

This article covers what the law requires, what you prepare as the manager, and how the same review runs in the owner portal.

What the law requires

Under § 29 (1) WEG the unit owners appoint the advisory board (Verwaltungsbeirat) by resolution. Since the 2020 reform the number of members is no longer fixed at three; if the board has several members, they choose a chair and a deputy.

Its tasks are set out in § 29 (2) WEG. The board supports and supervises the manager. The economic plan and the annual statement should be reviewed by the board and accompanied by its opinion before the owners resolve on them under § 28 (1) sentence 1 and (2) sentence 1 WEG.

The statute does not say how to review. In practice the board looks at the expenses and compares them with the receipts, usually as a sample: every booking above a threshold, plus certain cost types in full. The result goes into its opinion for the assembly.

Two more points belong here. If the board works unpaid, § 29 (3) WEG limits its liability to intent and gross negligence. And every individual owner's right to inspect the management records (§ 18 (4) WEG) stands alongside the board's review.

What you prepare

First, the board members have to be recorded as such. In Condomana you mark them in the condominium's owner list. A person counts as a board member when they are marked and currently own a unit in the association. Someone who has sold their flat loses access to the receipt review without you having to remember it. Members also need an owner portal login.

Second, the receipts have to be attached to the bookings. If you booked invoices through invoice capture, the receipt is linked to the booking, and the supplier name the invoice reader found appears in the Payee column. For bookings made another way that column stays empty.

Before you invite the board, go through the bookings without a receipt. The board can filter for exactly those, and a list showing "no receipt" twenty times raises questions you could have answered yourself beforehand.

What the board sees

Board members get a Receipt review item in the portal. After choosing the financial year they see that calendar year's expense bookings: date, cost type, payee, amount, whether the expense was paid from the reserve, and the linked receipts to open. Above the list are the totals per cost type and total expenses. They can filter by cost type, by an amount range and by bookings without a receipt.

Income and owners' payments are not part of the review, so neither monthly contributions (Hausgeld) nor special levies nor settlement balances appear. A document addressed to an individual person or unit, such as a letter to one owner, is not shown even if it is linked to a booking.

Nothing the board does here changes the accounting. Each time a member opens a receipt, it is logged with their name.

Checking and flagging

Each member works with their own marks. A booking that is in order gets Mark checked; a second click takes the mark back. Under Progress per board member everyone can see who has checked how many bookings, how many they have flagged and how many they have not looked at yet.

If something is off, the member chooses Flag booking and writes the question: "Gutter cleaning appears in May and June with the same amount. Two call-outs or a duplicate booking?" The whole board and the management read the thread.

You are notified and answer in Condomana under Receipt review, right on the booking. The member who asked is notified, provided they are still on the board. Follow-up questions continue in the same thread. When the answer settles the question, a board member closes the flag. A flag cannot be turned into a tick; it stays on record as a closed question with its answer.

So Mr Kaiser asks in March, you reply two days later with the second call-out report, and his deputy reads both in the same thread.

Finishing: the audit note

When the board is done, a member chooses Record review complete in the portal and describes under Scope of the review what was checked, for example: "All expenses above €1,000, caretaker and gardening cost types in full, other bookings as a 20 % sample."

Condomana turns that into the audit note (Prüfvermerk) as a PDF. It states the scope, the number of expense bookings, how many were checked and how many flagged, and lists the flags that were still open at completion. The review can be completed with open flags; they then appear in the note. The document is filed for the current board members, and you are notified.

There is one audit note per association and year, and it cannot be changed afterwards. The year's marks are then frozen. You can still answer open flags.

The note itself says that it records the review of the receipts within the stated scope and is not an audit opinion on the annual statement as a whole. The board still writes its opinion for the assembly itself. The audit note gives it a basis it does not have to reconstruct from memory.

When to review

The review belongs between the finished annual statement and the invitation to the assembly that resolves on the additional contributions. Allow three to four weeks for it; board members who can only review at weekends then do so at weekends. How the statement itself comes together is covered in The annual statement: from booking to a resolution that holds.

If the board only starts once the invitation has gone out, the questions come up in the assembly, where a call-out report is hard to produce.

What Condomana does not do here

Condomana does not check receipts for content and does not propose a sample; the board sets the scope. Bank accounts and balances are not part of the review, because Condomana has no bank connection. The audit note is not the board's opinion within the meaning of § 29 (2) WEG, and it does not replace the other owners' right of inspection.

The essentials

• § 29 (2) WEG provides that the board reviews the economic plan and annual statement and gives its opinion before the owners resolve. The statute leaves the method open.
• As the manager you mark the board members and make sure the receipts are attached to the bookings.
• The board reviews one calendar year's expense bookings in the portal, receipt alongside, and asks its questions right on the booking.
• Questions and answers sit in one thread the whole board reads.
• Completing the review produces an audit note with scope, figures and open points that cannot be changed.