Leading, Supporting, and Serving the Non-Profit Housing Sector

Best Practices

Resources for Financial Planning

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bullet BC Housing
The Housing Provider Kit is an important resource. See the
  • Financial Management guide for essential and thorough information on financial planning. View the guide on-line or download the PDF files.
  • On-line Resource Directory to download budget and replacement reserve plan worksheets under Financial Forms (or order hard copies).

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bullet BC Non-Profit Housing Association
BCNPHA offers a three-session series of Capital Planning workshops that
  • Introduce the concepts (half hour)
  • Lay the foundation for a capital plan (three hours)
  • Work with participants to develop their project-specific replacement reserve plan to 90% completion (six hours).

BCNPHA also offers the one-day workshop, Operating Agreements and Budgets, which surveys the operating agreements of various programs and highlights similarities and key differences. One area—the Operating Budget—is singled out for detailed examination. Learn what goes into creating a good budget and how to use it as a management tool.

Members can use BCNPHA’s Policy Templates to develop policies on budgeting, investments, and replacement reserves.

For workshops or Policy Templates, e-mail Kate Nielsen or call 604-291-2600 (1-800-494-8859), ext. 224.

BCNPHA also sponsors the Pooling for Increased Earnings (PIE) fund for operating funds and the Housing Investment Fund (HIF) for replacement reserves. E-mail Marg Gordon or call 604-291-2600 (1-800-494-8859), 225.

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bullet Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
CMHC is an important resource:
  • Managing Major Repairs: A Manual for Assisted Housing Providers provides help with the process of making major repairs (e.g. water penetration of walls) and has useful information on financing such repairs. Call 1-800-668-2642 or 604-731-5733 to order this free report.
  • Service Life of Multi-Unit Residential Building Elements and Equipment provides life-expectancy ranges (average, below average, above average) for over 230 components in apartment buildings over five storeys. A generic reserve fund cash flow model exists that can be used to factor in assumptions for length of building life, inflation rate for construction, and discount rate (download the Excel spreadsheet). Call 1-800-668-2642 or 604-731-5733 to order this free report.
  • The Replacement Reserve: A Guide for Use gives a useful, concise overview of replacement reserves and capital items. Two user-friendly, automated Excel spreadsheets are also available on diskette. E-mail Portfolio Management Officer Paulette Gal or call 604-737-4049.

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bullet Co-operative Housing Federation of BC
The CHF-BC Web site lists a number of Finance Workshops that may be helpful for financial planning. E-mail Sue Moorhead or Leslie Burdak.

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bullet Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto
The Co-op Housing Bookstore on the CHFT Web site offers a number of inexpensive, practical guides written using plain language:
  • Three guides, Financial Management, Preparing a Budget, and Property Management, while geared to co-ops, have extensive information and examples about financial planning.
  • A Guide to Solving Building Problems has valuable information on obtaining technical audits.

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bullet Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association
The ONPHA Financial Policies and Procedures Handbook has useful information for financial planning. A diskette comes with the manual and includes all forms and schedules. Order on-line. BCNPHA members pay the ONPHA member price.

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bullet Property Management Software
BCNPHA supports two suppliers: Netintegrity Inc. and Yardi Systems Inc. Both offer functionality for financial planning.

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bullet Volunteer Vancouver
Volunteer Vancouver’s resource library has a number of titles on financial management. Check the on-line catalogue. Some of these titles are also available in public libraries.

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