Independent bookkeeping & advisory firm · Serving clients nationwide, remotely
Tenant deposits, owner funds, and your management fees all run through your accounts — but only the fees are yours. We keep the deposit and owner-fund ledgers correct as liabilities, reconcile your trust account to the penny, produce clean monthly owner statements, and recognize management-fee revenue properly — so your records survive an owner question, a tenant dispute, or a state audit. We keep records and reconcile only; we never hold, sign on, or disburse trust money.
If your file needs our paid diagnostic first, its fee is credited in full against the cleanup. Either way, you get a fixed fee in writing before any work starts.
Property management accounting books tenant security deposits and owner funds as liabilities, never income, reconciles the trust account to the bank every month, and recognizes only your management fees as revenue, with monthly owner statements and 1099-MISC data in your own QuickBooks® file. It is a fixed monthly fee of $500–$2,500+/mo against a written scope.
They took something that felt overwhelming to me as a first-year business owner and made it simple.
What stood out the most was TechBrot Inc’s attention to detail.
Property-management books rarely fail on the fee side — they fail on the money that belongs to someone else. These are the three places it goes wrong.
Tenant security deposits land in income and owner rent gets mixed with fee revenue — so the firm looks far more profitable than it is, the balance sheet understates what you owe back, and a deposit you must return one day was already ‘spent’ on paper. The fix: deposits and owner funds booked as per-tenant and per-owner liabilities, with only the management fee recognized as revenue.
Owner funds, deposits, and the firm’s own cash run through the same account, so the trust balance never cleanly reconciles and a state real-estate-commission audit has nothing solid to stand on. The fix: the trust ledger kept fully separate from operating in the books and reconciled to the trust bank account monthly. Trust-account licensing and the actual fund movement stay with you and your attorney — we keep and reconcile the records behind them.
Owners get statements that don’t match deposits, draws, or fees, 1099-MISC numbers are reconstructed at year-end, and CAM reconciliations slip — so owners lose trust and disputes get expensive. The fix: monthly owner statements that reconcile to the bank, owner draws and withheld fees tracked cleanly, CAM reconciled, and 1099-MISC data kept accurate year-round.
Every engagement is scoped to your trust setup, owner portfolio, and software, delivered in your own QuickBooks file by your TechBrot team, with every close reviewed by a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. We keep the records; the money stays in your accounts, under your control.
Tenant security deposits and owner funds booked as liabilities per tenant and per owner, kept off income, with the trust ledger maintained separately from operating cash and reconciled to the trust bank account every month. We keep the records; the funds stay in your account, under your control.
BookkeepingMonthly owner statements that tie to the bank, owner draws recorded against collected rent, and management and leasing fees withheld and recognized correctly — so every owner sees an accurate, defensible accounting of their property each month.
Monthly bookkeepingManagement, leasing, renewal, late, and maintenance-markup fees separated from owner rent and recognized as the firm’s revenue when earned — so your income statement shows true fee income, not pass-through money that was never yours.
BookkeepingFor commercial portfolios, CAM charges, owner pass-throughs, and the year-end estimated-vs-actual reconciliation kept straight; and 1099-MISC data prepared for each owner who received rent — ready for your CPA to file.
BookkeepingUntangle commingled trust and operating funds, reclassify mis-booked deposits, and rebuild a property-management chart of accounts — then connect AppFolio, Buildium, Rent Manager, or Propertyware so rent, fees, and disbursements reconcile into one QuickBooks file.
Bookkeeping cleanupAs you add doors, fractional CFO advisory on fee structure, owner profitability, staffing, and the cash flow of a growing management book — the judgment layer above the books, built on accurate fee and trust numbers.
Fractional CFOThis is the most important sentence on the page: TechBrot keeps records and reconciles only. We never hold, control, sign on, or disburse tenant security deposits, owner funds, or any trust or escrow money. We maintain the deposit and trust ledger in your QuickBooks file and reconcile it to your bank — the money itself stays in your own trust account, moved only by you.
That means broker and property-manager trust-account compliance, and every decision about when and to whom funds are disbursed, stay with you. Trust-account rules vary by state and are set by your state real-estate commission; on any question of what the rules require or whether a specific disbursement is permitted, the authority is the commission and your attorney — not your bookkeeper. We build the records that let you demonstrate compliance; we do not make the compliance decision.
We also stay in the bookkeeping lane on tax: deposits and owner funds are liabilities, not income, and TechBrot does not file income-tax returns or set depreciation or tax treatment — your CPA or EA does, working from the clean records we keep. Confirm the boundaries on a call
A management company’s books carry three kinds of money at once — tenants’, owners’, and the firm’s. Each row below is a place property-management accounting diverges from ordinary bookkeeping.
| What it tracks | Property-management books | Standard books |
|---|---|---|
| Tenant deposits | Booked as a per-tenant liability, off income, reconciled to trust | Often hit income and overstate revenue |
| Owner rent collected | Held as an owner liability until drawn, never the firm’s revenue | Mixed into one income figure |
| Management fees | Separated and recognized as the firm’s fee revenue when earned | Blended with pass-through rent |
| Trust vs operating | Two distinct ledgers; trust reconciled to its own bank account | One commingled account |
| Owner statements | Monthly, per owner, reconciled to the bank | Not produced, or built from memory |
| Owner draws | Recorded against collected rent, net of withheld fees | Untracked transfers |
| CAM (commercial) | Charges, pass-throughs, and year-end true-up reconciled | Estimated and never reconciled |
| 1099-MISC to owners | Owner rent data kept accurate year-round | Reconstructed under deadline, if at all |
| Property software | AppFolio / Buildium / Rent Manager reconciled into QuickBooks | Lives in a disconnected second system |
We keep the ledger and the reconciliations correct — the money never moves through us. Trust-account compliance and disbursement decisions stay with you and your attorney, depreciation and tax treatment stay with your CPA or EA, and your owners’ income-tax filing is theirs. Managing your own buildings as the owner? That’s the real estate accounting lane. Ask on a call.
On different management software? If it tracks rent, deposits, and owner disbursements, we can reconcile it — collections, fees, and draws flow into clean trust and operating books instead of living in two disconnected systems. Ask on a call.
Every property-management engagement follows the same four-phase rhythm — built so the trust ledger reconciles before anyone relies on a statement.
A 30-minute call to map your doors, owners, trust setup, software, and fee structure — and where the books are breaking. No pitch, and a clear statement of what stays in your hands versus ours.
If needed, a cleanup to separate trust from operating, reclassify mis-booked deposits, and rebuild a management chart of accounts, plus QuickBooks setup wired to your property software.
Trust and operating accounts reconciled monthly, deposits and owner funds maintained as liabilities, management fees recognized, CAM kept current, and the trust ledger tied to the bank.
Monthly owner statements and draw records, year-round 1099-MISC data, plus advisory on fee structure and owner profitability as your management book grows.
Once the trust account reconciles and every owner statement ties to the bank, the question changes from “are the books right?” to “is the management company itself a good business?” Which owners and properties are actually profitable to manage after the work they create, whether the fee structure covers the labor, how many doors a leasing coordinator can carry, and what the cash flow looks like as you take on the next portfolio — the decisions that move a management firm, not just its clients’ buildings.
That’s where management-company advisory comes in: a QuickBooks ProAdvisor who knows your fee economics turning the numbers into pricing, staffing, and growth decisions. As automation commoditizes routine bookkeeping, this judgment layer is where the value — and the margin — now lives. Trust-account compliance stays with you and your attorney, and tax strategy stays with your CPA. Explore fractional CFO & advisory
Checked against TechBrot’s methodology.
A property manager handles money that mostly isn't the firm's: rent belongs to owners, security deposits belong to tenants, and only the management fee is the firm's revenue. Deposits and owner funds must be booked as liabilities rather than income, kept in a trust account separate from operating cash, and reconciled to the bank every month, while each owner receives a statement that ties out. Standard company-wide bookkeeping can't keep those three pools of money straight.
No. TechBrot keeps records and reconciles only. We never hold, control, sign on, or disburse tenant security deposits, owner funds, or any trust or escrow money. We maintain the deposit and trust ledger and reconcile it to your bank; the money stays in your own trust account and is moved only by you. Trust-account compliance and every disbursement decision stay with you and your attorney.
Security deposits are booked as a liability per tenant, kept off the income statement, and reconciled to the trust account so your records match the bank. They are returned or applied only by you under your state's rules; we keep the ledger that shows what is held for whom. State trust-account licensing rules are confirmed with your state real-estate commission or your attorney.
Yes. We produce monthly owner statements that reconcile to the bank, record owner draws against collected rent net of withheld management and leasing fees, and prepare year-end 1099-MISC data for each owner who received rent so it's ready for your CPA to file. TechBrot keeps the records and does not file income-tax returns.
Yes. We separate management, leasing, renewal, late, and maintenance-markup fees from owner rent and recognize them as the firm's fee revenue, so your income statement reflects what you actually earned. For commercial portfolios we track CAM charges, owner pass-throughs, and the year-end estimated-versus-actual reconciliation so tenant bill-backs and owner books agree.
Yes. We reconcile property-management platforms such as AppFolio, Buildium, Rent Manager, Propertyware, Yardi Breeze, and DoorLoop to QuickBooks, so rent, deposits, fees, and owner disbursements flow into clean trust and operating books rather than living in two disconnected systems.
Pricing depends on the number of doors and owners, trust-account complexity, the property software in use, and reporting needs, and is quoted as a fixed monthly fee against a written scope with no hourly billing. It falls within the firm's standard ranges on the pricing page — monthly bookkeeping from $500–$2,500+ per month, and a one-time bookkeeping cleanup from $1,200 to $15,000+ depending on scope.