Our Strata Manager has finally implemented a process where the Treasurer is required to approve all invoices before they get paid.   Getting this done was a big effort, but it is now up and running, and we have a chance to monitor how strata funds are being spent.   We discovered, for instance, that the SM suddenly decided to pay an invoice that was more than a year old!

However, the Strata Manager is not issuing invoices for their own charges.  They claim that they don’t have to as all the charges are already approved as part of the management agreement.   We don’t find out what they are charging until the end of the year, and even then it’s only in summary (they are also not providing proper S55 reports, a different issue that has dragged on for a long time).  This removes a lot of the point of the review process.

Before I start a fight to get SM invoices submitted in the same way as every other payment, I would like to find out:  Is it common practice for the SM to simply pay themselves without first preparing and submitting a proper invoice, on say a fortnightly or monthly basis?