Cleanup & Catch-Up
Books That Are Months Behind, Brought Current and Made Defensible
We do not start by fixing transactions. We start by finding the last period your books were genuinely right, and we work forward from there so what you end up with is a corrected history rather than a plausible one.
Diagnostic review, back-book correction, and catch-up reconciliation across AppFolio, Yardi, Buildium, Rent Manager, Entrata, MRI, and QuickBooks.
Diagnostic review
Findings before cleanup begins
You see this assessment, in writing, before you commit to the cleanup. Illustrative figures.
Diagnose, Then Correct, Then Keep It That Way
How a Cleanup Engagement Runs
The failure mode in cleanup work is starting to fix things before anyone has established what right looks like. That produces books that balance and still cannot be defended, because nobody can say which numbers were corrected and which were assumed.
- 1Diagnostic
We find the last period that genuinely tied out and measure everything that has drifted since: unreconciled accounts, negative ledgers, suspense balances, commingling, duplicates. Delivered in writing, with a scope and a timeline.
- 2Correction
Misapplied receipts re-applied, miscoded expenses recoded, deposits moved to the liability they belong to, duplicates removed, transfers matched to their counterparty. Corrections are made in period wherever the records allow it.
- 3Catch-Up
Every open period reconciled forward to today, including three-way tie-outs on trust and escrow accounts, until the current month closes on a clean opening balance.
- 4Handover or Ongoing
You get a written record of what was wrong and what changed. Most clients keep us on for the monthly close, because books handed back to the process that broke them break again.
What We Usually Find
The Six Problems Behind Most Real Estate Cleanups
Real estate books break in recognisable ways. None of these mean anyone was careless. They are what happens when a portfolio grows faster than the accounting process behind it.
- Security deposits booked as income
- Money that belongs to a tenant recorded as revenue. Overstates income, understates liabilities, and creates a tax problem on top of a trust problem.
- Owner draws mixed into operating expenses
- Distributions coded as expenses. The P&L understates profitability and the owner's basis is wrong.
- Mortgage payments expensed in full
- The whole payment hitting expense instead of splitting principal to the loan balance and interest to the P&L. Common in QuickBooks files, and it misstates both the balance sheet and the return.
- Negative owner and tenant balances
- Ledgers that went below zero and stayed there, usually meaning one party's money has been funding another's activity.
- Uncategorized and suspense pileups
- A holding account that started as a temporary placeholder and became the default destination for anything unclear.
- Reconciliations completed with carried variances
- Every month marked reconciled, every month with an unexplained difference rolled forward, so the reconciliation history proves nothing.
QuickBooks Cleanup for Real Estate
A File That Was Never Built for a Portfolio
QuickBooks is where most portfolios start and where many stay several properties longer than they should. It is a capable general ledger and it was not designed to hold trust funds, track per-unit performance, or produce an owner statement. The cleanup work usually has as much to do with structure as with transactions.
We clean the file, rebuild the class or location structure so property-level reporting actually works, and separate what belongs to owners from what belongs to the management company. If the portfolio has outgrown the platform we will say so, and we support the migration onto AppFolio, Yardi, Buildium, or Rent Manager when you are ready.
Schedule a CallIncluded in a QuickBooks cleanup
- Chart of accounts restructured for property-level reporting
- Class, location, or customer tracking rebuilt per property
- Security deposits reclassified from income to liability
- Mortgage payments split between principal and interest
- Owner contributions and draws separated from operations
- Every bank and credit card account reconciled forward
- Prior-year comparatives corrected so the trend is real
A cleanup is worth doing once. It is worth doing twice only if something changed about how the books are kept in between.
We will tell you at the diagnostic stage whether the problem is a backlog or a process, because they need different fixes and only one of them is solved by catching up.
The assessment comes before the commitmentFrequently Asked Questions
How far behind is too far behind?
There is no point at which we turn work away for being too old. We have taken on books that had not been reconciled in three years. What changes with age is the sequencing: the further back the last clean period sits, the more the engagement starts with establishing a defensible opening balance rather than correcting individual transactions.
How do you know where to start?
With a diagnostic. Before we correct anything we find the most recent period where the books genuinely tied out, then measure the damage forward from there: unreconciled accounts, negative owner balances, misapplied receipts, duplicate entries, transfers with no counterparty, and any commingling between trust and operating. You get that assessment in writing before committing to the cleanup itself.
Will you correct the books or just rebuild them?
Correct them wherever correcting is possible, because a corrected history is auditable and a rebuilt one is not. Rebuilding from a fresh opening balance is a last resort, used when the underlying records genuinely cannot support a correction, and when we do it you get documentation of exactly what was carried forward and why.
Do you do QuickBooks cleanup for real estate?
Yes, and real estate QuickBooks files have their own failure pattern: properties tracked as classes that drifted, owner draws mixed with operating expenses, security deposits recorded as income, and mortgage payments expensed in full instead of split between principal and interest. We clean up QuickBooks files and, when it makes sense, help move the portfolio onto a property management platform afterward.
What happens after the cleanup?
Most clients keep us on for the ongoing monthly close, which is the point of doing this at all. Books that are cleaned up and then handed back to the same process that broke them tend to be back in the same condition within a year. If you would rather bring it back in house, we hand over clean books with documentation of what changed.
Can you finish before my tax deadline?
Often, but tell us the deadline at the first call rather than at the end. Scope drives timeline, and a portfolio with twelve entities and three years of unreconciled trust activity is a different project from one property that is six months behind. We will tell you honestly if the date is not achievable and what a realistic one looks like.
Where This Fits
Cleanup is the entry point for most REA engagements. What comes after it is the monthly work that stops it being needed again.
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.
- Single-Family
- Multifamily
- Student Housing
- Affordable Housing
- Community AssociationsSee the page
- CommercialSee the page
Check Out What Our Clients Have To Say About Us
Property Managers, Investors & Owner Operators
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
230+
Property Accountants
30M+
Commercial Sq. Ft.
Up to 50%
Saved vs In-House
Every month
On-Time Close
Start With the Diagnostic
Schedule a call and we will tell you how far back your books last tied out, what it takes to bring them current, and whether what you have is a backlog or a process problem.