Doing the accounts as a volunteer syndic in France

A volunteer syndic in France keeps accrual accounts: a charge is booked when it is committed (quote signed, fund call issued), not when the money moves. Buildings with five main lots at most, or whose average provisional budget over three years stays below €15,000, are exempt from double entry (Anah volunteer syndic guide).

Owners rarely give up on the idea of a syndic bénévole over the fees or the liability. They give up over one word: the accounts. Bookkeeping is the task everyone assumes belongs to a chartered accountant, yet it is the most mapped-out part of the mandate, the one place where French rules say exactly what to record, when and in what form. What follows is the method, in the order you set it up.

A bank account in the association's name, before anything else

Nothing happens while the building's money sits in a loosely defined account.

Article 18 of the 1965 law requires every syndic, volunteers included, to open a separate bank account in the name of the syndicat des copropriétaires within three months, not in the syndic's name and certainly not on their personal account (Anah). Every building is covered, whatever its size. The volunteer is the authorised signatory, not the account holder: they sign the payments, they never mix their own money with the building's. This account is the foundation of the whole system. Every fund call lands in it, every invoice is paid from it and the bank statement becomes the document you tick the entries against, one by one. All money received for the association must be paid into it. A volunteer syndic who lets even a single reimbursement pass through their personal account is building themselves a justification nightmare for the next meeting.

Open it the moment you are appointed, ask for the card and online access in the association's name and keep every monthly statement. They are the backbone of the annexes you will present at the year's end.

Accrual or cash accounting: which one applies to your building?

This is the question that frightens people and it also has the cleanest answer.

As a rule, article 14-3 of the French law of 10 July 1965 requires accrual accounting kept by double entry, where every entry has its counterpart on the debit and credit side, as in a company. Small buildings are exempt, and many volunteer syndics fall squarely inside the exemption. It applies in either of two cases and meeting one is enough: the copropriété has five lots at most used as homes, offices or shops (cellars and parking spaces do not count); or its average provisional budget over three consecutive years stays below €15,000. You can then track money in and money out through the year, without the debit-and-credit machinery, and record commitments only at year end.

Watch out for a common misreading: the exemption covers double entry, not the accrual principle itself, nor the chart of accounts and the presentation format, which still apply. Even in simplified cash mode, you must still attach charges to the financial year they belong to, a December heating invoice belongs to the December year, even if it is paid in January. That matching rule is what makes the accounts truthful and it is exactly what the meeting looks at.

The five accounting annexes, the real heart of the job

The whole year's bookkeeping flows into five standardised annexes, numbered 1 to 5, attached to the meeting notice. Annexe 1 sets out the financial and cash position; annexe 2 presents the general management account of the closed year against the voted budget; annexe 3 breaks ordinary operations down by distribution keys; annexes 4 and 5 isolate works and exceptional operations voted outside the budget.

Read side by side, these annexes tell the same story from several angles: where the money came from, where it went, what is still owed, what is set aside. The format is fixed by a decree and an order of 14 March 2005, and Anah warns that accounts presented any other way weaken the resolution approving them (guide, p. 47). It is worth making them legible.

This is also where a tool earns its keep. Keeping the five annexes by hand, on a spreadsheet, stays feasible in a very small building. Beyond that, community management software such as Vecinly keeps each year's budget, calculates fund calls by allocation key, tracks payments and closes the year, so the annexes are filled from figures that already reconcile. Failing that, start from a fill-in ledger template rather than a blank sheet: copying a proven structure prevents the missing-heading slips that get accounts rejected.

How do you get the accounts approved at the general meeting?

Accounts kept all year long count for nothing until the meeting has approved them. The volunteer syndic attaches the five annexes to the notice, sent at least twenty-one days before the meeting, and puts two separate votes on the agenda: approval of the closed year's accounts and the vote on the following year's provisional budget. Both are decided by the simple majority of article 24: the majority of co-owners present, represented or voting by post.

A seasoned treasurer's habit: state on the notice where and when the supporting documents can be consulted. Between the notice and the meeting, any co-owner has the right to come and check the invoices, and an annexe backed by no consultable receipt is an open invitation to vote it down. It is almost never the accounting itself that stalls a meeting: it is the impression that the treasurer has something to hide.

Once the accounts are approved, the year is closed: owners' balances are fixed, charge adjustments calculated and the building sets off on a voted budget. The loop is complete and it will run again, identically, next year, which is precisely what makes it manageable.

Accounting is not the wall that separates a building from self-management: it is an annual routine, a separate account, an accrual principle and five annexes to present. The rest of a volunteer syndic mandate is handled as you go, including the handover described in our guide to changing syndic in France; the accounts, by contrast, follow a fixed calendar, which paradoxically makes them easier to keep than the rest. The volunteer who sets up the method in the first month (one account, one ledger, one folder of receipts) finds at year's end that they never needed a professional to produce it.

Information current as of September 2026. This article is for information only and does not constitute legal advice.