Guides
Interactive Tools for Strata Owners: See Where Your Money Goes
Explore UnitBuddy's suite of interactive tools, from levy forecasters to maintenance trackers, designed to help apartment owners understand their building's finances and make informed decisions.
· 5 min read
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Across Australia
A dashboard should not assume every building speaks NSW. The same data needs different labels across the country: capital works fund or sinking fund, owners corporation or body corporate, strata company or corporation, by-laws or rules, NCAT or the local tribunal pathway.
For national use, the tool should let a building choose its state and then adjust terminology, voting thresholds, disclosure documents and compliance reminders accordingly.
What to know before you act
- Interactive tools make strata data easier to understand when they answer a concrete decision question.
- The most useful dashboards connect levies, maintenance, compliance, and building health.
- Owners engage more when the interface shows consequences as well as numbers.
The tools are only useful if they answer questions owners already have at meetings: where did the money go, what is overdue, and what happens next?
- Start with levy, budget, and maintenance records
- Turn raw figures into owner-level views
- Reveal overdue work, pressure points, and trends
- Frame the decision before the meeting
- Use the evidence to support a better vote
Apartment owners pay levies every quarter but often cannot see where the money goes, whether maintenance is keeping pace or what they may be paying in five years.
Each tool below answers one of those questions. Adjust the controls or enter your own numbers to see what changes.
1. Levy money flow
The levy money flow answers a common owner question: "Where does my levy money go?"
This Sankey diagram traces every dollar from its source (levies, interest, other income) through the two statutory funds (Admin and Capital Works) and out to individual expense categories. The width of each flow is proportional to the dollar amount.
Use the slider to model a levy increase or decrease. Toggle between Admin Fund only, Capital Works only or the combined view.
Levies
$222k
Admin fund
$186k
Capital works
$36k
Insurance
$72k
Roof reserve
$36k
The Sankey shows which expenses consume the largest share of levy income and how a levy change affects the budget.
2. Building report card
A single health score can be misleading. A building might score 75 overall but have excellent operations and dangerously low insurance adequacy.
The radar chart breaks the assessment into six dimensions, each graded A+ to F. It overlays your building against an age-adjusted benchmark and uses trend arrows to show whether each area is improving or declining.
Drag the building age slider to see how benchmarks shift. Select "Show Peers" to overlay your peer group's average. The cards below give a letter grade and advice for each dimension.
- Money78
- Maintenance52
- Compliance70
- Records86
- Participation44
The score cards explain each dimension in plain language and show where the building sits against its benchmark.
3. Maintenance activity tracker
The maintenance tracker shows owners what work is getting done on the building.
Each coloured cell represents a single work item. Solid fills are completed. Striped borders mean in-progress. Dashed outlines are pending. Red borders flag overdue items that need attention.
Use the category chips to filter by trade. Switch between All, Active, Overdue or Completed views, then sort by newest or costliest.
| Item | Status | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Lot 12 bathroom leak | Quote in | Manager |
| Lift door jamming | On site | Contractor |
| B2 fire-door closer | Needs vote | Committee |
| Basement boom gate | Closed | Contractor |
The summary row shows total cost, average resolution time and overdue count together.
4. Levy forecast calculator
The levy forecast estimates how much an owner may be paying in five years.
This chart shows your building's actual levy history as a solid line, then projects forward based on the annual increase rate you set. Enter your lot's entitlement percentage to see your personal quarterly amount.
Use the +/- stepper to adjust the annual increase rate. Switch between 3, 5 or 10-year projections. Toggle the CPI comparison to see whether levies are rising faster than inflation, then enter your entitlement to personalise the numbers.
The summary cards show your current quarterly levy, the projected amount in X years and the total paid over the period. If you enter your entitlement, the cards also highlight your personal projection in blue.
5. Where your levy goes
A donut chart shows the top-level split. The sunburst adds the layer underneath, with concentric rings that move from the total budget to Admin Fund, Insurance and individual line items.
Select any coloured segment to zoom into its children. Enter your entitlement percentage and the centre label switches to show "Your Share: $X,XXX". You can also toggle between annual and quarterly views or between dollar values and percentages.
Admin fund
- Insurance38%
- Management22%
- Utilities18%
- Cleaning12%
- Other10%
Entering your entitlement shows how much of your quarterly levy goes to insurance, cleaning, lift maintenance and the other categories.
6. Spending patterns
Some expenses are steady year-round. Others spike seasonally: air conditioning in summer, gutter cleaning in autumn, insurance renewal in July.
The heatmap lays out expense categories against months in a colour-intensity matrix. Dark cells show higher spending and light cells show lower spending.
Toggle between absolute dollar values and the percentage-of-category view. The row below the chart identifies the peak spending cell, busiest month and quietest month.
Committees can use the pattern to anticipate the quarters with the heaviest outflows and set enough money aside.
7. Maintenance pipeline
Maintenance requests move through six stages: Submitted, Under Review, Approved, Scheduled, In Progress and Completed. Some requests stall or drop out at each stage.
The funnel chart shows how many requests complete each stage. The conversion chain below gives the pass-through rate and the average number of days spent at each stage.
Use the time-period buttons to narrow the data window. Priority badges show how many urgent, normal and low-priority items are in the system. Total processing time gives the average from submission to completion.
In this example, 48 requests were submitted but only 14 reached completion: a 29% throughput rate. The biggest drop-off is between Submitted and Under Review (5 days average), suggesting a review bottleneck.
8. Peer comparison
The Marimekko chart compares a building's spending with similar buildings. Wider columns mean higher total spending, while the stacked segments show the proportion spent in each category.
Toggle between Total $ and Per Lot to account for building size. Use the levy slider to model the building with a different levy level.
Levies / lot
Insurance
Capital works
The comparison shows whether insurance spending is high relative to peers or management fees are below average for the scheme size.
What the tools should do
Each tool follows the same practical rules:
- Enter your entitlement percentage to see your share, not only the building total.
- Use sliders, steppers, toggles and filters to test different scenarios.
- Read letter grades and plain advice instead of unexplained scores or industry jargon.
- Use the charts on smaller screens without losing the data.
- When connected to UnitBuddy's backend, see the tools update as new data arrives.
The charts help apartment owners understand the building's finances and check how their levies are being spent.
Keep the scheme file in one place the committee and the manager can both open. Features, pricing, or book a tour.