Practical guide
How to prepare owner statements from Yardi Breeze exports
A useful owner statement is more than a printout of transactions. It explains what happened during the period, connects activity to the right owner and properties, and gives the recipient a balance they can follow.
Start with the accounting period
Close the operational work before formatting a statement. Pick one period cutoff and apply it consistently. Post known receipts, bills, management fees, owner contributions, and distributions. Resolve obvious duplicates and date errors. If entries remain provisional, note that internally so a polished PDF does not create false confidence. A beautiful document cannot repair an incomplete ledger.
Export detailed source rows
Use the normal reporting controls in Yardi Breeze® to export the detailed general-ledger activity needed for the period. Keep the untouched export as your source copy. A detailed file is more useful than a summary because it preserves dates, properties, accounts, descriptions, and amounts needed to investigate totals. Do not share a login with a document tool or let a third party automate the reporting screen merely to save a few clicks.
Check the file before calculating
Open a copy and confirm the period, property scope, and row count look plausible. Look for title rows above the actual headers, blank separators, totals mixed into transaction rows, and amounts split between debit and credit columns. Confirm that negative values and parenthesized values are interpreted consistently. Save any cleanup as a separate working file so you can always trace a number back to the original export.
Create an owner-to-property map
A ledger export can identify a property without telling you which owner should receive its statement. Maintain a controlled mapping of owner name to one or more property codes. Review it when a property is acquired, sold, renamed, or transferred. If a property code has no owner, stop and assign it or explicitly exclude it; silently dropping unassigned activity is one of the fastest ways to produce a statement that appears to balance while omitting money.
Classify accounts, then aggregate
Group activity into income, operating expense, owner contribution, owner distribution, and other categories using your chart of accounts. Do not guess from the sign alone: a debit or credit means different things depending on the account. Preserve an “Other” section for unfamiliar codes and review it. Within each section, sum by account and, for multi-property owners, preserve property-level detail before creating the consolidated total.
Make the balance equation visible
A straightforward statement begins with the approved opening balance, adds net operating activity and contributions, subtracts owner distributions, and arrives at closing balance. Write the equation into your review checklist. Compare the calculated closing amount with the supporting ledger or prior approved work. If you do not have a trusted opening balance, say so and resolve it rather than manufacturing a beginning number from the current month.
Treat YTD carefully
Only show year-to-date figures when the uploaded rows cover the full year-to-date range. A one-month export cannot support a YTD claim. If the source file covers only the current period, label the column “Period” and omit YTD. When it does cover the year, confirm that the starting date is correct and that property ownership changes have been handled intentionally.
Use variance notes as review prompts
Compare material account totals with the prior month when both periods are available. A useful note names the category, direction, dollar change, percentage, and transaction count. It should remain a draft until someone checks the underlying entries. Avoid inventing causes: the ledger can show that landscaping expense increased, but it may not show whether the cause was seasonal work, a catch-up invoice, or a posting mistake.
Consolidate without hiding detail
When one owner has several properties, send one statement with a consolidated summary and separate property sections. This reduces email clutter while retaining enough detail to answer questions. Use stable property names, clear period labels, page numbers, and predictable filenames. Branding should identify the property-management firm; it should never mimic Yardi’s logo, typography, or visual identity.
Separate preparation from delivery
Generate the full batch into a review folder before sending anything. Compare the expected owner list with the files created, check that every filename is unique, and confirm that no owner’s pages appear in another owner’s document. Delivery deserves its own control: verify recipient addresses against an approved list, use the firm’s normal secure channel, and retain evidence of approval. Combining calculation and email into one irreversible click can turn a small mapping mistake into a confidentiality incident across the entire portfolio.
Run a human review
Before delivery, foot every section, confirm opening-to-closing balance, scan for unassigned property codes, compare distribution totals with approvals, and spot-check several lines against the original export. Confirm the recipient and delivery method separately. Retain records according to your agreements, accounting policy, and applicable rules. A calculation tool can make review faster, but the licensed manager and their advisers remain responsible for the records.