Setting Up Reserve Spending
Use this when a property will pay expenses from its reserve. You are telling URBI which GL account reserve spending should be charged against, so reserve activity stays separate from day-to-day...
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Use this when a property will pay expenses from its reserve. You are telling URBI which GL account reserve spending should be charged against, so reserve activity stays separate from day-to-day operating results. This is a one-time setup, done separately for each property.
- Open Accounting -> Settings, then open Accounting Details.
- Find Reserve spending account.
- Choose the GL account your property uses for reserve spending, then save.
The list only offers active equity accounts that belong to this property. That keeps the choice to accounts that can properly hold reserve spending, and stops an account from another property being picked by mistake.
If you do not nominate one
You are not blocked. If no reserve spending account has been nominated, URBI falls back to the property's own standard equity account, the one seeded when the property's books were set up. It is named for the property type, so it will read as Retained Earnings, Net Assets, or Fund Balance.
That fallback is a sensible default rather than a decision. If your property tracks its reserve in a dedicated account, nominate it explicitly so reserve spending lands where your accountant expects it.
When URBI will refuse to pay
URBI checks the nominated account at the moment a reserve expense is paid, not just when you save the setting. It refuses the payment, and posts nothing at all, if:
- The nominated account has since been deactivated, changed to a different account type, or moved to another property.
- The nominated account is the same account the expense itself was charged to, which would cancel itself out and record nothing.
A refusal is a safeguard, not a failure. Nothing has been posted to the wrong place. Return to Accounting Details, choose a valid account, and pay the expense again.
What this does not change
Nominating a reserve spending account has no effect on ordinary operating expenses. It only gives URBI what it needs to handle reserve-tagged activity correctly.
Note that this is not the same thing as a reserve bank account. The reserve spending account is an equity account and it is where the cost is recorded. A reserve bank account is a cash account and it is where the money physically leaves from. You may have both, and they are chosen in different places.
Related: How a reserve expense posts · Troubleshooting funds