Owner funds are not your funds, and the books have to prove it.
Remote bookkeeping — monthly close, cleanup, and books ready for your CPA.
Property management books carry a fiduciary problem ordinary businesses do not: rent collected belongs to owners, security deposits are liabilities held in trust, and management fee income is the only part that is actually yours. Commingle any of it and the exposure is real.
Trust and operating accounts never commingled, each reconciled monthly.
Security deposits tracked held versus returned, per tenant.
The bookkeeping behind monthly owner reporting, current.
Management fees recorded cleanly against gross collections.
Bookkeeping for property management is not the same in every state. Sales tax rates and what is taxable, registration and licensing, payroll rules, and filing cadence all vary — and for this industry those differences change real work, not just a number on a form. Pick your state below for specifics.
Property Management is a broad category, and the bookkeeping differs meaningfully between the trades inside it. Here is what actually changes, trade by trade — each is handled under this service rather than as a separate engagement.
Managing scattered single-family homes means many owners, many properties, and a trust position that has to reconcile at both levels — per property and per owner. Maintenance is unpredictable and per-property, with owner approval thresholds that need respecting and recording. Owner statements are the product the client actually buys, and their quality is a direct function of whether the underlying bookkeeping is current.
A management company holds funds belonging to each association it manages, in separate accounts, and its own revenue is the management fee alone — recording association funds or association expenses through company books is the failure mode that ends firms. Each association needs its own complete set of financials on its own schedule, and the company needs its own books showing management fee income and its actual cost to serve each contract.
Commercial management brings common area maintenance reconciliation: expenses are estimated and billed monthly through the year, then trued up against actual spend and each tenant’s pro-rata share. That reconciliation is an annual deliverable tenants scrutinise, and it is only possible if recoverable and non-recoverable expenses were coded correctly all year. Base rent, percentage rent, and escalations each need tracking separately.
Student properties run on an academic calendar with near-total turnover in a matter of weeks, which concentrates make-ready cost into one period and leaves summer occupancy as its own decision. Leases are frequently by the bed with individual liability rather than by the unit, multiplying the ledger count. Guarantors, prepaid semesters, and deposits held over a summer all need tracking that a conventional residential system does not naturally provide.
Managing a community means collecting lot rent from residents who own their homes, which is a different relationship from a tenancy and often a different legal framework. Utility recovery, where the community meters and rebills, is pass-through that must not inflate revenue. Where the community also rents park-owned homes, those are two distinct revenue streams with very different cost profiles that need reporting apart.
Not listed? Tell us what you do — these are the ones we are asked about most, not the limit of what we handle.
Categorization, reconciliation, month-end close, and clean financial statements — with nothing left for you to chase.
View pricingWe look at how your property management books are set up today.
Chart of accounts rebuilt around how your industry actually earns and spends.
Anything behind gets cleaned up at a fixed quoted price.
Current, reconciled books every month — ready for your CPA.
Sales tax nexus and taxability, licensing, payroll rules, and filing cadence differ by state. Pick yours for a state-specific guide.
Book a free consultation and we will tell you what your books need — and what it costs.
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