Sinking fund forecast and capital works plan software
Strata schemes have to plan for the big, predictable costs — repainting, roof replacement, lift modernisation, pool resurfacing — by setting aside money each year. A sinking fund or capital works fund forecast inspects common property, assigns each item a remaining life and a replacement cost, and turns that into a ten-year spending plan and a recommended annual contribution. Strata managers rely on it at the AGM, so the items, years and dollars must all reconcile.
Built for strata managers running teams of roughly 3–50 inspectors.
Sample Maintenance forecast report
An illustrative excerpt. The site, readings and findings are fictional; the layout is yours to set.
Maintenance forecast report
10-year capital works plan — extract
- Scheme
- Fictional Court strata, 36 lots
- Plan period
- 2027–2036
- Inspected
- 4 February 2026
| Item | Remaining life / year | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| External repaint, all elevations | 4 years — 2030 | Cost: $185,000 |
| Lift modernisation, Lift 1 | 6 years — 2032 | Cost: $140,000 |
| Pool resurfacing | 2 years — 2028 | Cost: $38,000 |
| Driveway gate motor | Failing — 2027 | Cost: $6,500 |
Fields captured on site
Your firm builds the form in-app, so these are a starting point rather than a fixed schema. Every field is captured on the device, with or without signal, and lands in the maintenance forecast report where your template puts it.
Per common property item
- Item and location
- Quantity
- Condition
- Remaining life
- Replacement year (calculated)
- Unit rate
- Cost (calculated)
- Photo
Fund inputs
- Opening balance
- Current annual contribution
- Interest and inflation assumptions
Forecast
- Spend by year (calculated)
- Recommended contribution
Standards the report works to
- Strata Schemes Management Act 2015 (NSW)Capital works fund and 10-year capital works fund plan
- For NSW schemes, requires the owners corporation to keep a capital works fund and a 10-year plan.
- Body Corporate and Community Management Act 1997 (Qld)Sinking fund budget requirements
- For Queensland bodies corporate, the basis for the sinking fund forecast the plan supports.
Load the standards you hold into your reference library and the drafted prose is written against them rather than against a general model.
How the maintenance forecast report gets built
Capture it once, offline
Your firm builds the sinking fund forecast inspection form in-app — 25 field types, nesting repeatable groups, compound AND/OR visibility rules, reusable modules and calculated fields. Field capture works with no signal: jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio all queue in an idempotent outbox that only clears once the server confirms receipt.
Link it to your buildings, levels and tenancies
Enter buildings, levels and tenancies once, as a register. Every one of your elements, defects and cost lines then points at a stored row rather than a name somebody typed — and the links survive a disconnected device.
Render your own template
The maintenance forecast report renders into the Word template you already use — your letterhead, your section order, your clause library — with conditionals, loops over repeats, composable sub-templates and photo grids.
Reviewed before it leaves
You write the review framework: a checklist of what a maintenance forecast report must contain, plus the prose standards you would mark a junior against. Link it to a report template and it runs every time that template renders. Each finding comes back graded info, minor or major, quoting the sentence at fault, and a person accepts or dismisses every one.
Because the structured submission behind the report is held too, the review is a comparison rather than a proofread: The narrative calls the roof "fair"; the element register grades it C with a twelve-month cost line against it.
Checks a commercial property framework usually carries
- Every graded defect carries a cost band and a priority
- The make-good schedule and the narrative describe the same condition
- Access and DDA non-compliances cite the clause they fail
- Every photo referenced in the text exists and is captioned
Questions
- Can the yearly spending table build itself from the inspection?
- Yes. Each item carries a replacement year and cost, and calculated fields total the spend by year, so the ten-year table is generated from the same items as the schedule.
- Can we update a forecast at the next review instead of starting again?
- The scheme’s items are stored, so a review can revisit each item’s condition and remaining life without re-entering the quantities.
- Will the AI change our contribution figures?
- No. Figures come from your form and calculations; the drafting only writes prose around them, and the review flags narrative that disagrees with the numbers.
What this is not
Worth knowing before you book a demo, so neither of us wastes the half hour.
- Not field-service dispatch. No timesheets, no parts, no inventory. Scheduling exists to get an inspector to a site.
- No signature capture. If your deliverable has to carry a signed sign-off on the artefact itself, this is not the tool yet.
- Field capture is what works offline — jobs, forms, photos, notes and audio. Reports, chat, scheduling and the inbox need a connection.
- No client portal. Reports go out as a file or a password-protected link.
Other commercial property work we cover
- Fire door inspectionsFire door register
- Fit-out compliance inspectionsFit-out compliance report
- Indoor air quality assessmentsIAQ report
- Legionella risk assessmentsLegionella risk report
- Lift registration inspectionsLift inspection report
- NABERS energy auditsEnergy rating evidence pack
- Replacement cost assessmentsInsurance valuation report
- Roof condition surveysRoof survey report
Other disciplines
Rebuild your maintenance forecast report in SurveyThanks
Bring the Word template you already send clients. If you are coming off another field-forms tool, a filled report can be uploaded, read field by field, and re-rendered into your template.