What Makes Agent Books Different
Four things that come up with real estate clients.
- Commission splits. The check from the title company is not your income. We break out the broker's portion from your commission so your books show what you actually earned, not what passed through.
- Nothing is withheld. No employer is setting money aside for you. Your books need to show what is really yours before you spend it.
- Expenses come from everywhere. Signage, staging, mileage, lockboxes, client gifts, MLS and association dues. They are small, constant, and easy to lose track of.
- Rental property. If you hold rentals in the same LLC as your agent business, it all lives in one set of books. If it is a separate entity, it stays separate. Either way it needs to be handled deliberately.
We wrote about why commission income is different from a paycheck in more detail on the blog: Bookkeeping for Real Estate Agents.
