Industry · Property management accounting
Property management books that keep other people’s money straight.
Tenant deposits, owner funds, and your management fees all run through your accounts — but only the fees are yours. TechBrot’s Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors 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. Independent firm, not affiliated with Intuit Inc.
Property managers hold money that isn’t theirs. Tenant security deposits and owner funds belong to other people and must be booked as liabilities — never income, kept in a trust account separate from operating cash, and reconciled to the bank every month. Only your management fees are revenue. Get the deposit ledger wrong, commingle a single dollar, or hand an owner a sloppy statement and you have a compliance problem, not just a bookkeeping one. TechBrot is a firm of Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors who keep the deposit and owner-fund ledgers correct, reconcile your trust account, produce monthly owner statements and owner draws, recognize management-fee revenue properly, prepare 1099-MISC data for your owners, and reconcile AppFolio or Buildium into your own QuickBooks file. Managing your own properties as an owner or investor? That’s a different lane — see real estate accounting.
Maintained by the Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor team at TechBrot Inc., an independent firm — not affiliated with Intuit Inc. TechBrot keeps records and reconciles only; we never hold, control, sign on, or disburse trust or escrow funds. Trust-account compliance and disbursement decisions stay with the property manager and their attorney; your CPA or EA files income taxes.
Property management accounting, in five questions.
How is property management accounting different?
Most of the money a manager handles belongs to other people: rent is the owners’, security deposits are the tenants’, and only the management fee is the firm’s revenue. Deposits and owner funds must be booked as liabilities, not income, kept in a trust account separate from operating cash, and reconciled to the bank every month — while owners get clean monthly statements and correct draws.
Do you hold or disburse our trust and deposit funds?
No. TechBrot keeps records and reconciles only — we never hold, control, sign on, or disburse tenant deposits, owner funds, or any trust or escrow money. We maintain the deposit and trust ledger and reconcile it; the money stays in your own trust account under your control. Trust-account compliance and every disbursement decision stay with you and your attorney.
Can you produce owner statements, draws, and 1099s?
Yes. We produce monthly owner statements that tie to the bank, record owner draws and the management fees withheld against them, and prepare year-end 1099-MISC data for each owner who received rent — ready for your CPA to file. We keep the records; we do not file income-tax returns.
How do you handle security deposits and CAM?
Security deposits are booked as a liability per tenant, kept off income, and reconciled to the trust account. For commercial portfolios we track CAM — common-area maintenance — charges, owner pass-throughs, and the year-end reconciliation between estimated and actual recoverable expense, so tenant bill-backs and owner books agree.
What does it cost?
A fixed monthly fee against a written scope, driven by the number of doors and owners, trust-account complexity, the property software in use, and reporting needs — within the firm’s standard ranges on the pricing page (monthly bookkeeping $400–$2,500+/mo; a one-time cleanup $1,500–$15,000+ depending on scope). No hourly billing. Portfolio-level advisory is a fractional CFO engagement.
Property management accounting, plainly.
A property-management company’s books are unusual because most of the money moving through them isn’t the company’s. Rent collected belongs to the owners; tenant security deposits belong to the tenants and must be returned or applied under state law; only the management fee — usually a percentage of collected rent, plus leasing, renewal, and maintenance-markup fees — is actually the firm’s revenue. Booked correctly, deposits and owner funds sit on the balance sheet as liabilities, the trust account reconciles to the penny, and the income statement shows only fee income.
Booked carelessly, deposits hit income, owner money and operating cash commingle, owner statements don’t tie to the bank, and a routine state real-estate-commission audit becomes a license problem. On top of that, every owner needs a clean monthly statement and a correct owner draw, and at year-end each owner who received rent needs accurate 1099-MISC data. None of that survives if the underlying ledger is wrong.
TechBrot’s Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors keep this ledger correct inside your own QuickBooks file, reconcile your property-management software into it, maintain the deposit and owner-fund liability schedules, recognize management-fee revenue properly, produce owner statements and owner-draw records, and prepare 1099-MISC data for your CPA. We keep records and reconcile only — we never hold, sign on, or disburse trust money. Managing your own portfolio as an owner? See real estate accounting instead. Independent firm — not affiliated with Intuit Inc.; does not file income taxes, and coordinates with your CPA or EA.
Three places managers put their license at risk.
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.
Other people’s money on your P&L.
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.
One account doing two jobs.
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.
Statements the bank can’t back up.
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.
Property management accounting, done by an expert.
Every engagement is scoped to your trust setup, owner portfolio, and software, delivered in your own QuickBooks file by a named Certified ProAdvisor. We keep the records; the money stays in your accounts, under your control.
Deposit & trust-ledger bookkeeping
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.
Bookkeeping → 02 · Owner statementsOwner statements & owner draws
Monthly 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 bookkeeping → 03 · Fee revenueManagement-fee revenue recognition
Management, 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.
Bookkeeping → 04 · CAM & 1099sCAM reconciliation & 1099-MISC data
For 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. We do not file the returns.
Bookkeeping → 05 · Cleanup & setupCleanup, setup & software integration
Untangle 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 cleanup → 06 · AdvisoryManagement-company advisory
As 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 CFO →We keep the trust ledger. We never touch the trust money.
This 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 discovery call →
What a property-management ledger does that a standard one can’t.
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 discovery call.
Connected to how you manage property.
- QuickBooks Online — the trust, owner, and fee ledger
- AppFolio — rent roll, owner ledgers, and trust activity reconciled to QuickBooks
- Buildium — tenant deposits, owner draws, and fees reconciled
- Rent Manager — lease, CAM, and disbursement data into the books
- Propertyware — single-family management portfolios reconciled
- Yardi Breeze — small-to-mid commercial and multifamily data into the books
- DoorLoop — rent, fees, and owner distributions reconciled
- Stripe & ACH rent rails — collections matched to the trust ledger
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 discovery call.
From a tangled trust account to clean owner statements.
Every property-management engagement follows the same four-phase rhythm — built so the trust ledger reconciles before anyone relies on a statement.
Discovery
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.
Cleanup & setup
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.
Monthly reconciliation
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.
Statements & advisory
Monthly owner statements and draw records, year-round 1099-MISC data, plus advisory on fee structure and owner profitability as your management book grows.
Clean trust books are the start. A scalable management company is the point.
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 Certified 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 →
Reviewed by the ProAdvisor team.
This page reflects how TechBrot actually handles property-management engagements. It is maintained by the Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor team at TechBrot Inc., a Delaware-incorporated independent ProAdvisor firm, and reviewed for technical accuracy on tenant-deposit and owner-fund liability treatment, trust-account reconciliation, owner-statement and owner-draw handling, management-fee revenue recognition, and 1099-MISC data preparation. TechBrot keeps records and reconciles only — we never hold, control, sign on, or disburse trust or escrow funds; trust-account compliance and disbursement decisions stay with the manager and their attorney, and your CPA or EA files income taxes.
Certifications
Active Intuit Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor — Online (L2), Desktop, Enterprise, Payroll
Scope
Deposit/owner-fund liability books, trust-ledger reconciliation, owner statements & draws, fee recognition, CAM, 1099-MISC data · records and reconciliation only — we never hold or disburse trust funds
Engagement
Fixed-fee, written scope before work · delivered in your own QuickBooks file
Independence
Independent Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor firm · Not affiliated with Intuit Inc.
Property management accounting questions.
How is property management accounting different from regular bookkeeping?
Do you hold, control, or disburse our trust funds and tenant deposits?
How do you handle tenant security deposits?
Can you produce monthly owner statements, owner draws, and 1099-MISC data?
Do you separate management fees from owner rent and handle CAM?
Do you work with AppFolio, Buildium, and other property-management software?
What does property management bookkeeping cost?
Ready when you are
Get property management books that survive an audit.
Book a 30-minute discovery call. We’ll review your trust setup, owner statements, and where the books are breaking, then send a written fixed-fee scope within 3 business days. No pitch. Independent firm — we keep records and reconcile only, never hold or disburse trust funds; your CPA or EA files income taxes.