REA.co Real Estate Accounting & Tax

Expert AppFolio Bookkeeping for Assisted Living Communities

Assisted living runs two businesses on one set of books: a real estate entity with debt and depreciation, and a care operation billed by resident, tier and day. AppFolio manages the building well, leases, trust accounting, owner reporting, but it has no concept of level of care or census, so the two businesses collide inside a chart of accounts built for one of them.

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Assisted Living Accounting Inside AppFolio

What Changes When You Run This Vertical On This Platform

Where it breaks

Level-of-care revenue has no native home

AppFolio bills like a landlord: a unit, a lease, a recurring rent charge. Assisted living bills like a care operation: a resident, a care plan, a level-of-care tier that changes when acuity changes. Because AppFolio has no field for level of care, operators post base rent, the level-of-care fee, the community fee, and ancillary charges to a single revenue line, or worse, to the same account as the lease charge. Margin by building disappears. The error goes unnoticed until year-end, when the P&L cannot say whether a community's profit came from occupancy or from care revenue.

How REA handles it

REA splits every charge by revenue type

REA sets up AppFolio's chart of accounts with distinct GL codes for base rent, level-of-care fees, community fees, and ancillary charges, mapped separately by community. Each month, the census and care-billing figures produced outside AppFolio (in the community's senior living or clinical system) are reconciled against AppFolio's recurring charges before the books close, so a mid-month move-in or care-level change posts as the resident's actual days and tier rather than a rounded estimate. Resident community fees are booked to the correct trust or prepaid account, not to income, and payroll is split by community using actual labor allocation, not a flat percentage.

What we check in your AppFolio instance

  • Base rent, level-of-care and community fees on separate accounts
  • Census and care-billing figures reconciled to AppFolio monthly
  • Resident community fees booked to trust, not income
  • Mid-month move-ins prorated to actual move-in date
  • Payroll split by community using real labor hours
  • Chart of accounts consistent across every community onboarded

The Full Scope of the Engagement

Two Pages Carry the Detail

This page covers what is specific to running Assisted Living books in AppFolio. The complete service scope, process, and pricing conversation live on the two pages below.

The vertical

Assisted Living Accounting

Full scope, monthly process, property types, FAQs and the team on the account.

See the Assisted Living page

The platform

AppFolio Bookkeeping

What AppFolio does well, where its accounting breaks, and how REA works inside your own instance.

See the AppFolio page
  1. 01

    Trust Accounting

    Tenant, owner, and security deposit money kept separate, tied out, and ready for a state audit at any time.

  2. 02

    Bank Reconciliation Services

    Every operating, trust, and escrow account reconciled on a fixed schedule, with the variances chased down rather than carried forward.

  3. 03

    Accounts Payable & Receivable

    Vendor invoices coded and paid, tenant receipts applied, management fees taken, and owner distributions cut on time.

  4. 04

    Bookkeeping Cleanup & Catch-Up

    Months or years of unreconciled books diagnosed, corrected, and brought current so the numbers you report are numbers you trust.

  5. 05

    CAM Reconciliation

    Common area maintenance pools built from the lease terms, reconciled against actuals, and billed or credited with a defensible tenant statement.

Experts In All Property Types

Residential, commercial and everything in between. The asset class changes what the books have to prove, and our teams are staffed accordingly.

Check Out What Our Clients Have To Say About Us

Property Managers, Investors & Owner Operators

Client story

Smaller portfolio, still looked after

Adam the owner took a personal interest in my situation and was willing to work with me to see if his company was a good fit. I may be too small for them but I would highly recommend them to anyone considering a bookkeeper for their property management business.

TSTrevor SmithProperty Manager

Came from a bookkeeper who did not know real estate

Following a series of erroneous financials from my previous bookkeeper, who lacked expertise in real estate, it's been truly remarkable to receive not only accurate financials on a consistent basis but also proactive advice without prompting. The REA team is a game-changer in real estate accounting!

SCSara CrosbyReal Estate Investor

Real-estate-only specialists

As REA exclusively specializes in Real Estate, I rest easy knowing my financials are precise every month while saving money at the same time, an invaluable benefit.

SWSteve WilkoOwner Operator

230+

Property Accountants

30M+

Commercial Sq. Ft.

Up to 50%

Saved vs In-House

Every month

On-Time Close

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Running Assisted Living On Something Else?

Same Vertical, Different Platform

Frequently Asked Questions

Can AppFolio track level of care and census the way a senior living system does?

No. AppFolio's property types are single-family, multifamily, student housing, affordable housing, community associations and commercial. It has no senior living product, so census, level-of-care assessments and care billing have to live in a separate clinical or senior living system, or a spreadsheet. AppFolio accounts for the building: leases, rent, trust accounting, owner reporting. REA reconciles the two systems every month so care revenue and building revenue both land in the right place.

We book resident move-in deposits as a security deposit in AppFolio. Is that right?

Usually not. AppFolio's trust accounting is built for landlord-tenant security deposits, refundable, held in trust under state law. A community fee or non-refundable deposit at an assisted living community is a different kind of transaction, closer to prepaid revenue than a tenant deposit. Booking it into AppFolio's standard deposit field either traps it in trust when it should be recognized as revenue, or posts it straight to income before it is actually earned. REA sets the account based on what the fee actually is, not which AppFolio field is closest.

How do you allocate payroll across communities when AppFolio doesn't have a way to do that?

AppFolio allocates fixed property costs, like utilities or debt service, at the building level well. It has no native method for splitting shared caregiver payroll, which is usually an assisted living operator's largest expense, across multiple communities. REA builds the allocation outside AppFolio using actual labor hours or census by community, then posts it into the correct property's GL so each community's P&L reflects its real staffing cost instead of a flat corporate percentage that hides which building is actually profitable.

Ready for Accurate Assisted Living Books in AppFolio?

Schedule a call with our team to talk through your AppFolio instance, what it is doing to your assisted living financials, and what REA would take on.