Property Management Accounting
The defining feature of property management is that most of the money passing through the account is not yours. Rents collected for owners, damage deposits held on behalf of tenants, reserve funds for a corporation: all of it sits in your bank and none of it is revenue. Books that do not model that distinction produce a picture of the business that is wrong in both directions, and produce owner statements nobody can reconcile.
What's included
- A class or property code per address, so one property cannot hide inside another
- Owner statements that reconcile to the bank, on a schedule owners can rely on
- Trust and deposit accounting kept fully separate from operating funds
- Management fee, leasing fee and markup revenue recognised as your income rather than blended with owner money
- Recurring maintenance, capital improvement and repair costs split correctly, one is an expense, the other is not
- Rent roll reconciled to what actually landed, with arrears visible rather than discovered
- Buildium, Yardi Breeze and Yardi Voyager data reconciled into your accounting file
Who it's for
- Property management companies holding rents and deposits on behalf of owners
- Landlords with multiple doors who cannot say what one address actually earned
- Condominium and HOA managers carrying reserve funds and special assessments
- Short-term rental operators dealing with platform payouts, cleaning fees and occupancy tax
- Owners running properties inside a corporation alongside other business activity
How it runs
The actual sequence, start to finish.
- 01
Map the portfolio
Every property, every owner, and which entity holds which. This is settled first, because it determines the entire structure of the file.
- 02
Separate the money
Operating cash, trust and deposit funds, and owner distributions get their own treatment, so what is yours and what is held is never a question.
- 03
Build per-property reporting
Income and expenses land against the address they belong to, which is what makes an owner statement possible and a portfolio comparison meaningful.
- 04
Reconcile monthly
Bank, rent roll and owner statements are reconciled together each month, so a discrepancy surfaces in the month it happens rather than at year end.
What it costs
Priced by transaction volume, then scoped for the number of properties and owners in play, a fifty-door portfolio is a different job from a five-door one at the same transaction count.
Questions about property management accounting
We already use Buildium. Why do we need this?
Property management software is very good at running a portfolio and only partly good at being an accounting system. It tracks rents, leases and work orders; it does not reliably produce a clean set of financial statements for the management company itself, and it does not file anything. We reconcile what the platform holds into a proper accounting file, so the portfolio view and the company's own books agree.
How do you handle damage deposits?
As a liability, not as income: because they are somebody else's money that you are holding. Where provincial rules require deposits to be held separately or to accrue interest, the file is built to match that rather than to a general standard.
Can owners get their own statements?
Yes, and reconciling to the bank is the part that matters. An owner statement that cannot be tied back to what actually cleared is where trust in a management company starts to erode.
What about capital improvements versus repairs?
They are treated differently for tax and they change the picture of a property's performance, so they are split at the point of coding rather than sorted out at year end. Getting this wrong is one of the more common and more expensive errors we see in property books.
More questions answered on the FAQ page.
Often paired with
Real Estate Brokerage Accounting
Brokerages, realtors and personal real estate corporations: including RECO trust and reporting requirements, handled every day.
Bookkeeping
Monthly reconciliation, coded transactions, and financial statements, every month.
Financial Reporting
Custom KPI dashboards and reporting beyond the standard monthly statements.
Bookkeeping for Retail and Personal Services
The commercial lease that does not match your bank statement, and card settlement that arrives late and net of fees.
Ready to talk about property management accounting?
A free 20-minute consultation, no obligation.