Expert RealPage Construction Bookkeeping For Companies & Contractors
RealPage was built for portfolio-level multifamily reporting, not job costing. When a construction or development entity runs its GL inside RealPage, percentage-of-completion accounting has to be forced onto a platform that has no native WIP schedule, no contract-level retainage tracking, and no change order workflow. The roll-up can look clean while the job cost detail underneath is disconnected from it.
Construction Accounting Inside RealPage
What Changes When You Run This Vertical On This Platform
Where it breaks
Job costing bolted onto a property ledger
RealPage has no percentage-of-completion module, so job costs get coded to GL segments meant for unit-level property expense, and the actual cost-to-complete estimate lives in a spreadsheet outside the system. Retainage payable and retainage receivable sit inside ordinary AP and AR aging instead of a dedicated schedule, so nobody can see at a glance what is held back on which contract. Change order costs often hit the job before the change order is signed, so the cost-to-complete number moves before the contract value does. None of this breaks the portfolio roll-up. It breaks the number underneath it, and that surfaces at year end or at audit, not at close.
How REA handles it
A WIP schedule maintained outside the software
REA does not ask RealPage to be a job costing system it was never built to be. We maintain the percentage-of-completion schedule separately, tied to the same GL job or segment codes RealPage posts to, and reconcile cost-to-complete against actual GL activity every close, not once a year. Retainage payable and receivable get pulled out of general AP and AR aging and tracked against the contract value on each job. Change orders are checked for signed approval before their costs are allowed to hit cost-to-complete. RealPage stays the system of record for cash, GL, and the portfolio roll-up. The job cost layer gets built and checked around it.
What we check in your RealPage instance
- Cost-to-complete reconciled to actual GL postings
- Retainage payable and receivable tracked by contract
- Change order approval confirmed before cost recognition
- Equipment purchases coded as capital, not expense
- Job cost GL segments checked against property coding
- WIP schedule tied out at every close
The Full Scope of the Engagement
Two Pages Carry the Detail
This page covers what is specific to running Construction books in RealPage. The complete service scope, process, and pricing conversation live on the two pages below.
The vertical
Construction Accounting
Full scope, monthly process, property types, FAQs and the team on the account.
See the Construction pageThe platform
RealPage Bookkeeping
What RealPage does well, where its accounting breaks, and how REA works inside your own instance.
See the RealPage page- 01
Trust Accounting
Tenant, owner, and security deposit money kept separate, tied out, and ready for a state audit at any time.
- 02
Bank Reconciliation Services
Every operating, trust, and escrow account reconciled on a fixed schedule, with the variances chased down rather than carried forward.
- 03
Accounts Payable & Receivable
Vendor invoices coded and paid, tenant receipts applied, management fees taken, and owner distributions cut on time.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
230+
Property Accountants
30M+
Commercial Sq. Ft.
Up to 50%
Saved vs In-House
Every month
On-Time Close
Running Construction On Something Else?
Same Vertical, Different Platform
- AppFolioConstruction bookkeeping in AppFolio
- BuildiumConstruction bookkeeping in Buildium
- EntrataConstruction bookkeeping in Entrata
- QuickBooksConstruction bookkeeping in QuickBooks
- Rent ManagerConstruction bookkeeping in Rent Manager
- YardiConstruction bookkeeping in Yardi
- MRIConstruction bookkeeping in MRI
Frequently Asked Questions
We run our development entities through RealPage alongside our multifamily portfolio. Can it handle job costing for construction the way a construction-specific ERP would?
Not natively. RealPage does not have a built-in percentage-of-completion or job costing module the way Vista or CMiC do. It can carry job or segment codes in the GL, which is enough to track cost by job if the coding is disciplined, but the WIP schedule, cost-to-complete estimate, and retainage tracking have to be built and maintained outside the software. REA sets that up as a reconciled monthly process rather than a year-end scramble.
Our portfolio roll-up looks fine every month. Why would we need someone checking the property-level detail underneath it?
RealPage is good at consolidation, so a clean roll-up tells you the math added up, not that the underlying numbers were right. A job with unbilled cost sitting in the wrong account, or retainage buried in AP aging instead of tracked against the contract, will still roll up cleanly. It just means the error is bigger and harder to find once it reaches the portfolio level. REA reviews the property and job-level detail before it rolls up, not after.
How do you handle retainage in RealPage specifically, since it doesn't have a dedicated retainage module?
RealPage will let retainage sit inside standard AP and AR balances unless someone deliberately separates it out. That makes it easy to overstate cash available or understate what is actually owed on a contract, because retainage held is neither a normal payable nor a normal receivable, it is contingent on project milestones. REA tracks retainage payable and receivable on a schedule tied to each contract, separate from the aging reports, and reconciles it back to the GL every close.
Ready for Accurate Construction Books in RealPage?
Schedule a call with our team to talk through your RealPage instance, what it is doing to your construction financials, and what REA would take on.