REA.co Real Estate Accounting & Tax

Expert Buildium Bookkeeping for Assisted Living Communities

Buildium was built for rental and association management, not senior housing. An assisted living operator running census-driven care revenue and payroll through the same general ledger that tracks the real estate gets a chart of accounts with no room to separate the two businesses. The gap has to be built by hand, in the chart of accounts and the reporting, not found in the software.

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Assisted Living Accounting Inside Buildium

What Changes When You Run This Vertical On This Platform

Where it breaks

One revenue account hides where margin comes from

Buildium's chart of accounts is built for a single rent roll, not a rent-plus-care structure. Base rent, level-of-care tiers, community fees and ancillary charges all get coded to one income account because nobody set up sub-accounts or GL segments to split them. The books close clean every month, occupancy looks fine, revenue looks fine. What's invisible is which piece is actually profitable: the real estate or the care operation. It surfaces at renewal or refinance, when an owner asks what the care margin is separate from the rent, and the answer isn't in the ledger.

How REA handles it

We build the revenue split Buildium doesn't

We set up separate GL accounts, or at minimum class or segment tracking, for base rent, level-of-care tiers, community fees and ancillary charges inside Buildium's own chart of accounts, working within its simpler structure rather than asking it to be something it isn't. Move-ins get prorated by day against the actual level-of-care schedule, not rounded to the month. Deposits post to a liability account, not revenue, until they're earned or refunded. Payroll gets allocated to the community it actually serves, using hours or headcount as the basis, not a flat percentage split across the portfolio.

What we check in your Buildium instance

  • Base rent split from level-of-care revenue
  • Community fees coded to their own account
  • Move-in prorations calculated by day, not month
  • Resident deposits booked as liabilities, not income
  • Payroll allocated by community, not by guess

The Full Scope of the Engagement

Two Pages Carry the Detail

This page covers what is specific to running Assisted Living books in Buildium. 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

Buildium Bookkeeping

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

See the Buildium 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

Day-to-day financial operations

REA and team have been nothing but excellent helping our firm with its day to day financial needs. Their expertise, professionalism, and timeliness have made our lives so much easier. We foresee a long relationship with REA and team.

BCBrian CookOwner Operator

Onboarding and responsiveness

Real Estate Accounting truly is a special company. They helped as if they were a part of our company, with the concern and caution as an employee would have, but even more. They quickly ascertained our needs and developed an effective team to help with our accounting needs. They were extremely responsive and always accurate. I would recommend their services to anyone who needs help with their property management accounting.

KSKelly StanawayProperty Manager

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

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

Does Buildium have a module for assisted living or level-of-care billing?

No. Buildium has no senior living product, it's built for residential rentals and community associations with a straightforward general ledger. Level-of-care tiers, community fees and census-based billing all have to be modeled manually, using sub-accounts or class tracking inside the standard chart of accounts. We set that structure up so the reporting can separate care revenue from rent, but the functionality itself doesn't exist natively.

Can Buildium tell us whether our care operation or our real estate is actually making money?

Not out of the box. If every charge type posts to one revenue account, the P&L shows total income but not the split. Once we build separate GL lines for base rent, level-of-care fees, community fees and ancillary charges, the same reports Buildium already runs, income statement, budget comparison, can show each piece on its own. The platform can produce the answer, it just needs the accounts structured to hold it first.

We run rentals, an HOA and an assisted living community in the same Buildium instance. Is that a problem?

It raises the stakes on account structure. Buildium's rental-plus-association design already makes fund segregation something you have to set up deliberately rather than get by default, and adding a care operation on top means a third set of numbers competing for the same chart of accounts. We map all three, trust funds, HOA assessments and care revenue, to distinct accounts so none of them blend into each other on the ledger.

Ready for Accurate Assisted Living Books in Buildium?

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