Management transitions, from the prior manager's files to your setup sheets.

When a board signs with you or a portfolio changes hands, the outgoing manager sends what it has: governing documents, budgets and financials, the reserve study, insurance policies, vendor contracts, open bills, open work orders and the owner roster. It comes as a shared drive, boxes of binders or an export from a system you don't run. Someone on your team turns it into a list of gaps and spreadsheets your system can load.

For the test, AI works from copies of the files from a transition you already closed. It drafts the checklist and setup sheets: vendors and contracts, insurance terms, budget lines mapped to your chart of accounts, reserve components, open bills and open work, each traced to its source page. We call it the sandbox. Nothing is imported.

The records come late and in pieces. Florida's statutes, in section 468.4334, give an outgoing community association manager or firm 20 business days after the contract ends, or after a written request, to return the association's official records, and let it keep what it needs for an ending financial statement for up to 20 business days. Elsewhere the contract usually sets the timing. The first delivery is rarely complete, so the draft starts with a checklist: what your onboarding standard expects, what arrived, what is missing and who to ask.

Two charts of accounts. The prior manager's account numbers rarely match yours. Budgets arrive by their numbers, and one operating line in their chart can be three lines in yours. The setup sheet keeps both columns, their account and yours, so your accountant approves the mapping line by line instead of trusting a lookup. Lines that fit none of your accounts are listed, never forced.

Contract dates and insurance terms. Vendor contracts carry the dates that bite first: when a term ends, whether it renews on its own, how much notice cancelling takes. Policies arrive as declarations pages with carriers, terms and deductibles. For many condo projects, Fannie Mae's Selling Guide wants the association named as the insured on a fidelity or crime policy that covers the acts of any management agent, and says a policy in the manager's own name is not an acceptable alternative. The draft lists every policy and date and flags the ones a lender will ask about.

The reserve study is its own document. CAI's National Reserve Study Standards describe three levels of service: a full study, an update with a site visit, and an update without one. Each component carries a useful life and a remaining useful life. The setup sheet records the study's date and level and lists components with those figures as written. Opening bank and reserve balances are left for your accountant to confirm.

Rental portfolios bring their own pile. A bought book of rental doors adds management agreements to re-sign, owner W-9s, leases, keys, and security deposits wherever the prior manager held them. The draft lists what each owner, unit and lot needs on your side, and leaves every homeowner and tenant balance, deposit and payment history to your team.

After your transition lead says yes, the job runs for about 30 days on the next association or portfolio you take on.

Nothing loads into your system until your transition lead approves each sheet. Your team still opens bank accounts, keys balances and talks with the board or owners. Nothing else is added that month.