Monthly Archives: May 2014

Product Updates

Manage your Apartment Finances, even more efficiently!

Payment

In our constant endeavor to help you manage your apartment complexes more effectively, we have added a set of feature enhancements to our Money Management module. Some of the key changes introduced are:-

1)  Seamless Integration with Asset Management: – With this integration done, any asset transaction (Purchase/ Sold) will now reflect in the accounting reports.

2)  Simplified Journal entries: – Recording a Journal entry in the Money Manager module is now simpler and standardized.

3)  Audit-ready Accounting Reports: – We have worked with accounting experts to ensure that our reports adhere to the accounting standards and have adopted the widely accepted ‘Accrual’ basis of accounting.

4)  Additional Ledgers In Trial Balance: – Separate ledgers have now been provided for the following:-

  • Penalty on Maintenance Dues (will be shown under ‘Penalty’)
  • Service Tax raised (will be shown as ‘Service Tax Payable’)
  • Each bank account (will be shown as a separate ledger)
  • Settling of invoices (will now reflect as ‘Discount on Settlement’)

 Above changes should help you in:

1)   Getting relevant Asset entries in Trial Balance and other accounting reports.

2)   Generating accurate and reliable accounting reports that are also audit-ready.

3)   Easily recording journal entries and updates on the portal

4)   Bringing more clarity to treasurers regarding trial balance entries.

Got an idea or suggestion?

Tell us what you think of these refinements in the comment section below or drop us an email with your suggestions at support@commonfloor.com and we’ll be all ears!

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Fun Posts

CommonFloor’s Presence at UnPluggd: Vikas Malpani talks about The Art of Scaling

Vikas-Malpani-250x250On the 24th of May, Vikas Malpani, our Co-founder, spoke at UnPluggd which is without a doubt the biggest start-up conference in India. This event brought together more than 600 entrepreneurs and investors of successful start-ups across the country to speak about their experiences, lessons and goals.

Besides our very own Co-Founder, Vikas Malpani, some other prominent speakers who spoke their hearts at this year’s UnPluggd event were Sachin Bansal (Flipkart), Mukesh Bansal (Myntra), Ankit Pruthi (Unicommerce), Kingsley Joseph (TripThirsty) and Vishal Anand (CPO @NewsHunt).

Here goes a synopsis of what the captain of our ship covered:
Vikas Malpani spoke about the ‘Art of Scaling’ which includes the scaling of technology, product, infrastructure, team and revenue. He spoke at length about Commonfloor’s phenomenal scaling journey that had begun in 2007 with seeking revenue from offline pamphlet advertisements to pioneering the concept of ‘Apartment Management Software’ in India to launching property map search feature to receiving funding of over $10M to setting up offices in 18 cities across India to ComScore ranking Commonfloor.com as the No. 1 website with maximum number of unique visitors for Nov, Dec ’13 & Jan 14.

He went on to discuss how important it is to have a strong feet-on-street sales team, mass-media as a marketing platform, running revenue experiments while remaining focused and always keeping yourself and your team motivated.

Looking back with pride at how Commonfloor.com has scaled up and grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years, he finally spoke about what the company has learnt over time- focusing on ‘real’ customer problems, building ‘quality’ right from the start, making product ‘solution-rich’ and not ‘feature-rich’, hearing the customer but deciding by number and the final & vital principle of ‘Build-Measure-Learn’.

Here is the presentation http://www.slideshare.net/CFGroups/unplugged-2014-scaling-up-common-floor

Leave a comment in the section provided below if you have any questions or wish to share your experience attending the event.

 

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Product Updates

CommonFloor Groups Unveils Its Brand New Android App

CommonFloor Groups brings out its new user-friendly mobile application in an effort to make its community management tool easily accessible from anywhere on your mobile devices and not just on your laptops or computers.

Why You Need It?

  • To be able to access your community management portal from anywhere, anytime
  • So you can keep yourself up to date with all the occurrences within your society
  • To send a direct message, start a discussion, raise a complaint, write a notice, find out which neighbour lives where, update payments made or to simply update/edit your profile
  • To make sure all content that goes live on the platform is first moderated by you to avoid any objectionable content (can be done by Management Committee members)

Some Important Highlights

  • Enriched Visual Experience-Clean interface with a lively appearance
  • Optimized Mobile Experience-Easy, fast navigation and user-friendly application
  • Push Notifications-Get notified on your community’s latest updates

pushnotification

 

App Features
On downloading the app and logging in, you will see

  • News-feed: Get a snapshot overall view of community ongoing activities.

news_feed

 

  • Discussion: Start a discussion/reply to a currently discussed topic.

detail-discussion

 

  • Complaints: Raise a complaint on a community related issue bothering you.

complaint_feed

 

  • Notices: Create a notice for an event or to make an announcement.

notices

  • Neighbours: Find out exactly where each neighbour lives.

neighbours

 

  • Messages: Send a direct message to a neighbour to interact and know your neighbours better.

view-messages

 

  • My House: Find out pending dues against your house.

bill

  • Settings: Use this feature to edit your profile, change your password or to contact our support team.
  • Moderate: If you are a management committee member, you can moderate content uploaded on the platform.

moderate-users

 

Download Now for Android version 4.0.3 and up!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.groups.commonfloor

PS: We are soon bringing in the iOS and Windows versions too!

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Product Updates

Money Manager Module Update: Introducing Defaulters List

No one wishes to have to deal with “Maintenance defaulters” but it’s no news that often treasurers are left with no other choice. When it comes to collating a defaulters’ list, it’s a painful job which requires plenty of time and subsequent follow-ups.

Now, are you a treasurer who finds himself in such situations and wishes there could be one space containing a list of all defaulters with their respective house numbers? There’s exciting news for you! We have just introduced the Defaulters List feature to our Money Manager Module.

Snapshot: Defaulters List

Defaulter's List

How Is It Helpful?
This feature will help Treasurers in easily keeping track of all those who have not paid their Maintenance Dues on time or beyond the due date.

  1. You have the option to filter the final report by Block, House, Invoice Title and the number of Days Elapsed.
  2. You can also take a printout of the defaulter list and put it up on notice boards in the community (club house, lifts or halls) as a reminder to residents.

Where Will You Find It?

  1. Log on to www.groups.commonfloor.com using your login credentials.
  2. On the dashboard page, click on your community name.
  3. On your community homepage, under the Manage tab on the right section of the page, click on the Money icon.
  4. On the Money Manager page, under Reports tab click on the Defaulters List button.

Once you’re on the Defaulters List view, you can choose a date range and filter out a list of defaulters based on block number, house number, invoice title and days elapsed.

Hope you will find this new feature addition useful. Write to us at support@commonfloor.com in case you have any query. :-)

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Smart Residential Living

Accounting : CommonFloor Groups vs Tally

CFG-vs-Tally_P1 (1)

CFG-vs-Tally_P1 (1)Every residential complex requires an accounting tool to effortlessly manage the uphill task of community accounting.

CommonFloor Groups includes a Money Management module designed specially for a residential complex for easy management of income, expenses and dues in  and offers considerable information on property taxes imposed by the government.

Tally Accounting Software, on the other hand, is best used as a corporate accounting software designed mainly for taking care of generation of financial statements, accounting vouchers (to record account related transactions) and taxation.

Read on to understand a comparison between both these tools to get a better idea of the aspects of community money management each tool takes care of.

CommonFloor Groups vs Tally

Specifications
Groups
Tally
Initial Set-Up FreePaid
Yearly Renewal FreePaid
Need Experienced Accountant No Yes
Free SMS & Email AlertsYesNo
User Friendly with Preset Accounting HeadsYesNo
Automatic & Manual Options for Invoicing by Managing CommitteeYesNo
View Dues & Make Payment using Payment GatewayYesNo
Easy Reconciliation of Payment GatewayYesNo
Resident Transaction detail posting for Easy ReconciliationYesNo
Automatic Late Payment PenaltyYesNo
Complete Drop-down box mentioning Accounting Heads & categoryYesNo
Automatic Contra Debit & Contra Credit of Cash & Bank AccountsYesNo
Options of Combinations for Creating Maintenance Invoice for Variable CalculationsYesNo
Easy Access by Managing Committee (24X7)YesNo
Moderated AccessYesNo
Excel Upload of Maintenance InvoiceYesYes
Automatic Interest Calculation and Total Pending DuesYesYes
Creation of Invoice by the Associations themselvesYesYes
Ledger Accounts for Individual FlatsYesYes
Ledger Accounts for VendorsYesYes
Ledger Accounts for Bank & Cash & Petty CashYesYes
Invoice, Payment Receipts, Payment Vouchers Excel ImportYesYes
Customization of Accounting HeadsYesYes
Journal EntryYesYes
Export and Importing of Accounts in Excel FormatYesYes
Reports Income & Expense, Trial Balance & Balance SheetYesYes
Multi-CurrencyNoYes
Multiple Companies’ Accounts in a Single systemNoYes

Conclusion: CommonFloor Groups’ accounting system and Tally Accounting Software are both money management tools that have proven significantly helpful in community accounting matters.

But what gives CommonFloor Groups’ accounting system an edge are factors such as combination options when generating invoice, SMS/Email reminder, controlled access of community accounts and due viewing option/payment using payment gateway. And what makes it any residential complex’s obvious choice is the fact that its set-up and renewal doesn’t cost a penny!

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