Get a handle on the financial side of your portfolio or business

If you’re like many investors, you know keeping clean and up-to-date financial records is key to making good financial decisions, minimizing your tax liability, and growing your wealth.

Do you have the funds to put a down payment on the next property?
Are one or more of your properties underperforming?
How much tax will you owe?

All these questions can be answered when you have a good accounting system that is updated regularly. Without one, you’re making educated guesses (at best).

Kick-Off Call

Meet your accounting advisor to discuss your business, engagement expectations, timeline, and transfer the information required to complete your engagement.

Implementation

Our team will set up your QuickBooks Online (QBO) accounting system based on the type of real estate business you own or operate.

Monthly Bookkeeping

Once your system is implemented, we will handle the month-to-month bookkeeping functions to keep your financial records up-to-date, then deliver reports on 15th of each month.

Accounting Advisory

Our accounting advisors are available to you on an as-needed basis to help you review and interpret your financial statements. Think of us as on-demand consultants.

How we help get you to financial stability

Our Accounting Process

Our proven outsourced process provides you with the accounting system and resources you need to get insightful reports, monitor cash flow, and save hours of bookkeeping time.

Phase 1 1

Setting Up Your Accounting System

The goal of an accounting setup engagement is to deploy a fully functional accounting system based on your business.

Whether you’re a landlord, fix and flipper, wholesaler, property manager, brokerage, syndicate, or fund... we have the necessary expertise and capability to ensure your business financials are built with, strong foundation and not relying on property management solutions.

As your portfolio or business grows, you’ll need a dedicated accounting system to track financials efficiently.

Phase 1 includes:

Setting up a QuickBooks Online (QBO) account with the appropriate chart of accounts, class tracking, and opening balances.
Reconciling bank accounts.

Assets have been captured, including property basis in QBO.

Easy to use receipt management system in QBO.

Training on how to use your accounting system ( or explore 3rd party vendors like Real Estate CPA to manage on your behalf)

Phase 2 2

Maintaining Your Accounting System

Once your accounting system is fully functional, here are three options for maintenance mode to keep your business the best financial situation possible:

DIY: We can turn the books back over to you and your team to maintain.
Financial Bookkeeping Coaching: We let you manage the books and can provide ongoing support and training (through periodic check-in calls). Starts at $500/quarter
Outsourced Accounting: We will take over your bookkeeping with our monthly full-cycle program. Starts at $250/month

Phase 2 includes:

Maintaining an accurate record of transactions.
Capturing the purchase or sale of property through journal entries.
Reconciling Bank account(s) to ensure accurate reporting.
Generating financial reports including P/L, Balance Sheet, and General Ledger.
On the 15th day following each month, you’ll be delivered a set of financial statements that will allow you to track the health of your business and make better financial and investment decisions.

Quickbooks configuration and transaction capture back to last fiscal year end, plus matching books to PY tax returns.
Chart of accounts to match your business operations.
Linking bank accounts and data imports.
Implementation of class tracking for property level financials.
Implementation of receipt management and upload.

Monthly bank reconciliations.
Ongoing transaction capture and receipt matching.
Monthly financial package - including balance sheet, P&L, and general ledger.
Accounting advisory and financial analysis.
QB training and support.

Request a Consultation for Outsourced Accounting Services

Whether you already have an accounting system in place, or we set one up for you, someone eventually needs to handle the month-to-month bookkeeping functions to keep your financial records up-to-date.

If you don’t want to deal with the time-consuming and repetitive bookkeeping function or don’t want to deal with the hassles of managing an in-house bookkeeper, speak to one of our solutions experts by completing the form.

Our real estate accounting team is standing by to take over the monthly bookkeeping function out of your hands!

Generated over:

$315,000

In Rental Losses

IRA distribution

$50,000+

to fund acquisions

Reduced their tax liability

$62,000+

the following year

Reduced by:

$124,000+

Tax Liability

“Ross gained confidence and clarity that qualifying as a real estate professional was in reach and tranisitioned into a successful full-time investor and agent.”

“Rachael was a successful doctor and Ross was transitioning into full-time investor when they started working with us. Through our guidance, Ross gained confidence and clarity that qualifying as a real estate professional was in reach and transitioned into a successful full-time investor and agent. After acquiring and managing several rental properties they were about to generate over $315,000 in rental losses from there properties, take an IRA distribution of over $50,000 to fund acquisitions, and still reduce their tax liability by over $62,000 from the following year.”

Rachael & Ross - REPS

“Larry acquired a luxury short-term rental property and was abe to reduce his tax liability by over $124,000.”

“Larry, a successful sales representive earned several million dollars in the year he engaged our firm for tax planning. With our guidance, Larry acquired a luxury short-term rental property and was able to reduce his tax liability by over $124,000. ”

Larry - Short-Term Rental Investor

Meet Your Experienced Accounting Team

Taylor Brugna, CPA Partner

Kristina Mueller Senior Accounting Advisor

Joanne Kelly Senior Accounting Associate

Charles Cunanan Book Keeper

Frequently Asked Questions

Search By:

Real estate investors and business owners of virtually all types including:

Landlords
Fix and flippers
Wholesalers
Agents and brokers
Property managers.
Syndicates and funds
Other related small businesses

It's never too early to start considering outsourcing this function of your business.

However, we’ve found that landlords should generally begin considering outsourcing at around 3-4 properties. This is when managing your finances on a spreadsheet begins to become too tedious and inefficient.

For other real estate businesses, it will vary, but if you’re planning to ramp up quickly, it generally makes sense to get this aspect handled sooner rather than later so you can get a handle on the financial side of your business from day one, and can focus on more important tasks that will grow your business.

While this may sound self-serving, bookkeepers and assistants are typically the first hires successful entrepreneurs to make in their business.

If you engage us for monthly Full-Cycle services, generally yes we will replace your current bookkeeper or accountant.

However, if you prefer to have an in-house bookkeeper or accountant, we can work with you on Accounting System Implementation and Advisory services.

Most outsourced bookkeeping service providers are generalists and focus on many different businesses and often lack real estate specific expertise.

At The Real Estate CPA, all of our clients are real estate investors or business owners and we’ve developed real estate specific expertise that allows us to provide tailored solutions to our clients in ways most other providers can’t.

Also, because we focus on real estate, this also allows us to not only help our clients with expert real estate bookkeeping and accounting services, but also provide unique financial and operational insights.

In most cases, yes. We wouldn’t be The Real Estate CPA if we couldn’t.

Generally, yes.

Some of our clients simply want us to set up their accounting system then they will take over the monthly accounting function, but still have our Accounting Advisors available should issues arise.

Others want us to do the system implementation then take over the monthly accounting function so they can focus on growing their business and not worry about handling the monthly accounting themselves or managing an in-house bookkeeper or accountant.

And others have the system and the in-house staff already, but just need accounting support from real estate accounting experts.

Whatever you're needs are, we have you covered.

The goal of our monthly bookkeeping services is to make bookkeeping as hands-off as possible for you.

We will generally communicate with you once per month to obtain context on certain transactions that can't otherwise be categorized without your input. We strive to learn from these interactions in order to reduce the time you need to spend on this step as low as possible.

In many cases, we've had clients delegate this responsibility to an assistant, office manager, or another staff member, further reducing the amount of time our clients need to spend on this process.

All that said, our Accounting Advisors are available for you via email support, and by phone/Zoom upon request.

The costs of our services vary based on the size of your business and how long you've been operating without an accounting system.

However, costs are generally as follows:

Accounting System Implementation starts at $500 for new investors and business owners who are just starting out. To as much as $10,000 or more for businesses or portfolios that need a lot of clean-up to be brought up-to-date.

Monthly Full Cycle services start at $200/month and will vary based on the size of your portfolio or business.

Accounting Advisory services are generally customized services that can be performed at an hourly rate or fixed cost depending on the scope of the engagement.

At this point in time, we use QuickBooks Online (QBO) as the accounting software in our accounting systems we implement and/or manage for our clients.

QuickBooks Online (QBO) provides all the necessary functions for real estate accounting and is currently our accounting software of choice.

Yes, QBO is currently our accounting software of choice.

At this point in time, we do not work with Xero.

QuickBooks Online (QBO) provides all the necessary functions for real estate accounting and is the accounting software we use today.

That said, this could change in the future but we currently have no plans to implement Xero into our accounting services.

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Buildium
Appfolio
Yardi

Yes, we can help you interpret your financials in order to better understand the financial performance of your portfolio or business and make better decisions.

Ask us about financial dashboards.

Yes, we can help you interpret your financials in order to better understand the financial performance of your portfolio or business and make better decisions.

Ask us about financial dashboards.

Yes, we provide payroll services via QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Gusto.

Yes, we can help file 1099s.

Absolutely. We provide tax preparation services to real estate investors and businesses of all types. Click here to learn more.

Most certainly. We provide tax planning and advisory services to real estate investors and businesses of all types. Click here to learn more.

To get started please visit our Become a Client webpage. If you fit the description of clients we work with, please fill out a webform and provide as many details about your tax and financial situation as possible.

Generally, we meet with potential clients for an initial consultation to learn more about their situation, if we can help, and if both parties believe it makes sense to work together.

Whereas the Kick-Off Call is where we meet with clients discuss expectations, collect additional information or documents required to kick-off the engagement after we've decided it makes sense to work together and have a signed engagement agreement in place.