You earn from what you own.
Rental property, real estate, and holding companies. The money is spread across entities and properties, and the entity structure that protects you also makes the books harder.
You will recognise this if…
- Each property has its own bank account and nobody has a consolidated view
- Money moves between entities and nobody records the other side
- Improvements and repairs land in the same expense account
- Depreciation is something your CPA does once a year
- You cannot say which property is actually performing
Why the close is hard here
These are the four things that most often make the monthly close wrong here — and what has to be true for it to be right.
Entities have to be kept separate, then combined
Each entity needs its own clean set of books, and you still need a consolidated picture. That means intercompany transactions recorded on both sides and eliminated properly, every month.
Capital versus expense is a real decision
Whether a spend is repaired or capitalised changes this year's income and the years after it. Decided consistently and documented, it holds up. Decided case by case, it does not.
Property-level results are the only useful ones
A combined statement across a portfolio hides which asset is carrying which. Reporting has to run per property and roll up.
Distributions and contributions are not income
Money moving between owners and entities is a balance sheet event. Recorded as revenue or expense, both the income statement and the capital accounts stop being true.
What we do about it
- Separate books per entity with monthly intercompany reconciliation
- Consolidated reporting with eliminations
- Property-level income statements that roll up to the portfolio
- Fixed asset register with a documented capitalisation policy
- Owner contributions and distributions tracked to capital accounts
Covered here: All industries → · Controller services →
Questions we get asked
Can you handle multiple entities?
Yes. Each entity is kept on its own books, with intercompany activity reconciled monthly and eliminations applied for consolidated reporting.
Do you track depreciation?
We maintain the fixed asset register and book depreciation monthly on the policy set with your CPA, so the year is not a surprise.
Can we see results by property?
Property-level statements that roll up to the portfolio are standard here.
Do you handle cost segregation studies?
No. Those are performed by specialist firms. We record the results and maintain the asset register accordingly.
Not sure this is you?
Most owners sit across two of these. A short conversation sorts out which parts actually apply.
Talk to a finance pro →