CPA’s and Management Companies

Today, I asked Clause about the pros and cons of having a CPA firm handle financial matters and a management company handle the remaining activities for a Southeast Florida-based condominium with 52 units, a pool, and a social room.

For a 52-unit SE Florida association with a pool and social room, this is a decision about whether to split the traditional community-management bundle into two specialized vendors rather than one full-service firm. A few things about Florida’s regulatory environment right now make this more consequential than it would be elsewhere, so I’ll fold that in before the pros and cons.

Florida context worth knowing

Every Florida condo association already has to engage a CPA at least once a year regardless of who manages the property: Fla. Stat. 718.111(13) sets the required level of report (compiled, reviewed, or audited) based on total annual revenue, with higher revenue triggering a more rigorous (and expensive) report. So the real question for your board usually isn’t “CPA or no CPA” — it’s whether to expand the CPA’s role from just the annual statutory report and tax return into ongoing monthly bookkeeping, accounts payable, collections, and bank reconciliation, with the management company handling everything else (maintenance, vendors, pool/social room operations, board administration, compliance). Post-Surfside reforms (mandatory Structural Integrity Reserve Studies, no more waiving reserves for structural components, milestone inspections, stricter records and transparency rules) have also made lenders — including Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac condo project reviews — pay much closer attention to an association’s financial health and documentation, which raises the stakes on getting the accounting done well.

Pros of splitting financial matters (CPA firm) from general operations (management company)

• Separation of duties. The party that approves and initiates vendor payments (management company) isn’t the same party that reconciles the bank account and produces the financial statements (CPA firm). This is the single biggest argument for the split — embezzlement and financial mismanagement are the most common sources of condo board disputes and lawsuits in Florida, and no single entity having full control over both authorizing and recording money is a textbook internal control issue.
• Deeper accounting/tax expertise. A CPA firm that specializes in community association accounting typically understands fund accounting, reserve schedules, and the statutory reporting thresholds better than a generalist management company’s bookkeeping staff and can proactively advise on the new mandatory reserve-funding rules.
• Smoother statutory compliance. Since the CPA is already maintaining the books, the annual review/audit is less of a disruptive outside exercise and more a continuation of work already in progress — often faster and sometimes cheaper than having an outside CPA audit books kept by someone else’s software.
• Management company can focus on operations. Vendor coordination, pool and social room maintenance, resident relations, and compliance filings receive full attention rather than competing with bookkeeping, which is often the weaker function within mid-size management companies and a frequent source of owner complaints (late or inaccurate statements).
• Independent vendor accountability. If either firm underperforms, you can replace it without disrupting the other relationship or losing continuity of financial records. A single bundled vendor can otherwise hold your data somewhat hostage.

Cons

• Coordination overhead. Two vendors have to communicate constantly — invoice approvals, delinquency data, bank balances, reserve transfers, budget prep. Slow handoffs between them can cause late vendor payments or delayed owner statements.
• Added cost. You pay for two overhead structures instead of a single bundled fee. For a 52-unit association (on the smaller side for this kind of split, which is more commonly justified for larger, 100+ unit associations), the incremental cost relative to your total budget may be proportionally heavier than for a bigger property.
• Blurred accountability. When something goes wrong — a missed insurance premium, a misposted reserve transfer — it can be unclear whether it’s a management company failure (approving/initiating) or a CPA failure (recording/processing) unless the contracts define the handoff precisely.
• Software/data integration friction. The management company’s AP and collections system needs to feed the CPA firm’s general ledger cleanly, either through compatible software or manual transfer — both of which introduce lag and error risk if not engineered carefully, and not every management company will grant a third-party CPA live access to its platform.
• The separation-of-duties benefit isn’t automatic. If the management company still holds check-writing or ACH authority while the CPA “just does the books,” you haven’t actually achieved full separation — the board needs to explicitly decide who has bank signing/dual-authority, or the main advantage of the split evaporates.
• Portal/communication confusion for owners and board. Volunteers on a self-managed board often prefer one point of contact; splitting the relationship means checking two portals or getting information from two sources.

Practical next step

Before deciding, it’s worth having the board nail down three things in writing: exactly what “financial matters” means (annual statutory reporting only, or full monthly bookkeeping/AP/collections), who holds bank signing authority and initiates disbursements, and a real cost comparison against a full-service management company’s bundled rate — since some SE Florida management companies already include in-house accounting staff and only bring in an outside CPA for the required annual review or audit, which is a lighter-weight version of the same idea.

Sources:

• Chapter 718 Section 111 – 2025 Florida Statutes
• Florida SIRS Requirements 2026: Deadlines, Costs & Reports
• Changes to Condominium Laws Regarding Financial Reports and Official Records – Becker & Poliakoff
• On Separating HOA Financial Management | Community Financials
• HOA CPA Responsibilities | Associa
• Florida SIRS & Reserve Study Requirements (2026) | Effortless HOA