Member since 2019 Independently owned A family-run firm that has done one thing since 1975: the books for California community associations — kept in-house in Walnut Creek, with the backing of a national cooperative.
The story
Condominium Financial Management started in 1975 as Herbert N. Krauss Tax and Accounting Services, with homeowner associations among its clients. When Herb died in 1980, his wife Linnea kept the association work, formed CFM, and ran it alone for fourteen years while raising three children. Their daughter Stacie joined out of college in 1994. Linnea still works in the business today.
The firm does one thing: the bookkeeping and financial side of community association management, and nothing else. Accounts payable and receivable, general ledger, budgets, delinquencies, escrow, and the monthly financials a board actually reads. It is one of only a few firms in California built around that work alone, and all of it is done in-house by fifteen people in one Walnut Creek office, where a person still answers the phone.
CFM does not pay for marketing. New clients come by word of mouth, and the firm takes on one a month — on purpose — so that every new set of books gets Stacie’s own hands and a transition coordinator’s full attention. It has stayed independent by choice. It gives its people’s hours to CAI and CACM, and its money to the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, International Justice Mission, and White Pony Express.
The satisfaction I get from cleaning up a set of books and making it all make sense is still one of my favorite things to do.
Why boards trust CFM
CFM does bookkeeping and financial management for community associations, and nothing else. Payables, receivables, general ledger, budgets, delinquencies, escrow and monthly financials, for roughly 100 California associations. confirm
Every one of CFM’s fifteen employees works in the Walnut Creek office, and the phones are answered live. Both principals stay reachable after the contract is signed.
Stacie builds every new set of books herself, and a transition coordinator gives each new association a full month of undivided attention. Growth is deliberately slow so that service is not.
CFM does not monetize homeowner payments. It earns its fee from the work itself, and when an account has to go to collections, the board chooses from three vetted agencies rather than a single source.
Smaller firms in this industry are being bought by larger ones. CFM intends to stay family-run, and its Innovia membership is part of how: buying power and thought leadership from independent companies across the country, without giving up the name on the door.
For your association, that means a family firm’s attention and a national cooperative’s resources — from a partner that plans to stay exactly what it is.
See all membership benefitsStacie Donnelly
CFO & Co-owner
PCAMCCAM
Leadership
Stacie Donnelly was eight when her mother, Linnea Juarez, reorganized the family accounting practice into CFM. She joined it out of college in 1994, earned California’s CCAM in 1997 and CAI’s PCAM in 2000, and runs the firm today alongside her mother as CFO and co-owner.
She still builds every new client’s books herself, holds herself to whatever she asks of her team, and says the thing clients mention most is that she and Linnea stay accessible long after the contract is signed.
Outside the office she has served on the CACM board, led the CAI Bay Area & Central California chapter as president, and has volunteered since 2014 with the legislative support committee behind CAI’s California Legislative Action Committee, where she was elected vice-chair of its executive committee for 2023–24.
Credentials & standing
ACMC
Accredited Community Management Company — CACM’s firm-level accreditation, held since 1999
CAI & CACM
Community Associations Institute and the California Association of Community Managers’ Management Business Council
PCAM & CCAM
Both owners hold CAI’s highest manager designation and California’s state-specific certification
Innovia Verified
Member in good standing of the Innovia co-op since 2019
Track record
Roughly four in ten CFM clients are self-managed associations that want professional books without full-service management. The rest are management companies without a bookkeeping arm and independent managers who opened their own shop. All of them get a firm entrenched enough in CAI and CACM to point a board to the right attorney or construction manager when one is needed. confirm
Statements, late charges, and notices are handled inside CFM. When an account has to go further, the board chooses from three vetted collection agencies integrated with CFM’s software, CFM works alongside the agency the whole way, and the account comes back to CFM once the delinquency is cured.
From one office in Walnut Creek, CFM serves associations across the East Bay, San Francisco, the Peninsula, the South Bay, the North Bay and the Sacramento Valley, plus a handful of clients in Southern California. Every client is in California, and every set of books is kept in-house.
Mon–Thu · 8am–5pm · Fri 8am–1pm
condofinancial.comTalk to CFM
CFM takes on one new client a month, so a proposal starts with a conversation — about your association, how your board works, and whether the fit is right on both sides. No hard sell.