Can a property management company keep its books with you, even though it handles owner funds?
Yes, a property management company can absolutely work with us. The key is understanding which books we’re talking about.
Your operating books cover the business of running the management company itself. That means the management fees you earn, the payroll for your property managers and office staff, rent on your own office space, marketing costs, software subscriptions, and everything else that makes up your operations. This is standard full-service bookkeeping, and it’s exactly what we do.
Trust accounting is a different animal. When you collect rent on behalf of property owners and hold those funds until disbursement, that money sits in a trust account that doesn’t belong to your company. Reconciling those accounts, tracking which funds belong to which owner, and handling security deposits requires specialized trust accounting with its own rules and reporting requirements. We don’t provide that service. If you need trust accounting, you’ll want a firm that specializes in it.
But the management company itself still needs its own financial picture. You need to know whether you’re profitable, which properties generate the most management fee revenue, and where your operational expenses are going. You need payroll run correctly. You likely have maintenance contractors who need 1099s at year end.
We work in QuickBooks Online and keep everything clean and current month to month. The result is financial statements that show how the management company is actually performing, separate from the owner and tenant funds that flow through your trust accounts.
Simona is a CPA and Enrolled Agent who provides bookkeeping and tax services to service businesses across New England and nationwide. If you’re a sole proprietor or single-member LLC, your personal tax return is something she can handle too. Tax planning is also available to help you keep more of what you earn from management fees.
If you’re not sure where the line falls for your particular setup, reach out for a consultation. Every property management company is structured a bit differently, and we can talk through what makes sense for yours.
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