REA.co Real Estate Accounting & Tax

Expert QuickBooks Bookkeeping for Assisted Living Communities

Assisted living runs two businesses through one login: a real estate holding with a mortgage and depreciation schedule, and a care operation billed by level of care and filled seat by seat. QuickBooks does not know the difference. Every account that should separate rent from care revenue, or a resident deposit from a rent payment, exists only if someone built it that way, and most books never did.

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Assisted Living Accounting Inside QuickBooks

What Changes When You Run This Vertical On This Platform

Where it breaks

Care revenue and real estate rent share one account

QuickBooks ships with one income account unless someone builds more. Base rent, tiered level-of-care fees, community fees and ancillary charges for things like medication management or extra meals all land in the same bucket, coded by whoever is fastest, not by what the money actually is. Nobody notices because the P&L still closes and the bank reconciles. It surfaces at renewal or refinance, when an owner asks what the real estate throws off on its own, separate from a care operation whose margin depends on staffing ratios and occupancy that swing month to month, and the answer does not exist.

How REA handles it

Classes and items that separate the two businesses

REA sets up class or location tracking so every transaction carries two tags: which community it belongs to and which business it belongs to. Rent, level-of-care tiers, community fees and ancillary charges each get their own income account under an item list built around the fee schedule, so a level-of-care upgrade shows up as a level-of-care upgrade, not a rounding error in rent. Move-ins get prorated on a fixed formula tied to move-in date, not estimated. Deposits post to a liability account and stay there until they are earned or refunded, not swept into revenue the month they land.

What we check in your QuickBooks instance

  • Rent and level-of-care fees in separate accounts
  • Community fees and deposits booked as liabilities
  • Mortgage payments split between principal, interest, escrow
  • Payroll costs allocated by community, not estimated
  • Class or location tags on every transaction
  • Depreciation schedules matched to the fixed asset list

The Full Scope of the Engagement

Two Pages Carry the Detail

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

QuickBooks Bookkeeping

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

See the QuickBooks 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

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

Handed over the whole accounting function

I highly recommend Real Estate Accounting (REA) services from this group. They truly are great and have helped us tremendously at a time we needed it the most. I felt very comfortable giving up all my accounting responsibilities to this team and I'm still glad I made the decision to work with this group. Nothing less than an amazing experience!

TCTracy CollinsProperty Manager

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

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

We already use classes in QuickBooks for each community. Isn't that enough to separate the real estate from the care side?

Classes alone tell you which community a transaction belongs to, not which business it belongs to. Real estate accounts (rent, mortgage interest, depreciation) and care accounts (level-of-care fees, staffing, resident services) need their own structure inside each class, usually built through the chart of accounts and item list together. Without that second layer, a class report still blends a strong building with a struggling care operation, or hides the reverse, into one number.

Should we book resident deposits as income when we receive them?

No, and this is one of the more common misses. A resident deposit, whether a community fee that converts later or a refundable security deposit, is not earned revenue the day it hits the bank. It belongs in a liability account until the resident moves in, the fee is earned under the agreement, or the deposit is refunded. Booking it straight to income overstates revenue in the month of collection, and can be a real problem if state rules treat any portion of it as funds held in trust.

We're growing past a few communities. At what point does QuickBooks stop being the right tool for this?

There is not a hard number, but pressure shows up in the same places: class structures get too many layers to stay readable, payroll allocation across communities becomes a manual project every month, and the lack of a trust module starts to matter once a state examiner asks how deposits are segregated. QuickBooks can carry several communities if the chart of accounts and classes stay maintained. Past that, the honest conversation is whether a platform built for property and care, not just ledger entries, is worth the switch.

Ready for Accurate Assisted Living Books in QuickBooks?

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