Expert Rent Manager Construction Bookkeeping For Companies & Contractors
Rent Manager was built to track units, leases, and recurring rent, not jobs, phases, and draws. A contractor running percentage-of-completion accounting has to bend that structure to fit, using properties as jobs and custom fields as cost codes. The workaround usually holds until someone asks for a real WIP schedule.
Construction Accounting Inside Rent Manager
What Changes When You Run This Vertical On This Platform
Where it breaks
Job costing forced onto a leasing data model
Rent Manager has no native job, phase, or cost code object, so firms repurpose Properties as jobs and Units as phases, then track cost codes through custom fields someone configured years ago. Percentage-of-completion depends on comparing cost incurred to estimated cost at completion, but if the custom field meant to hold estimated cost was left blank on half the jobs, or renamed by a different property manager, the completion percentage understates or overstates depending on which jobs got skipped. Nobody catches it until the WIP schedule is pulled for a bank covenant and the numbers do not reconcile to job files.
How REA handles it
Rebuild the job costing map before trusting the numbers
REA starts by pulling every custom field and GL sub-account tied to job costing and mapping each one back to what it is actually being used for, not what it was named. Estimated cost, cost to date, and billed to date get traced job by job to confirm the fields are populated consistently across the portfolio, not just on the jobs a bookkeeper happened to finish setting up. Once the mapping is verified, REA reconstructs the WIP schedule from that data and reconciles it to the job files before it goes anywhere near a financial statement or a bank.
What we check in your Rent Manager instance
- Confirm properties-as-jobs mapping is consistent portfolio-wide
- Trace estimated cost fields for blank or stale entries
- Verify retainage sits in a holdback account, not AR
- Check change orders are dated before cost postings
- Reconcile WIP schedule to individual job files
The Full Scope of the Engagement
Two Pages Carry the Detail
This page covers what is specific to running Construction books in Rent Manager. 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
Rent Manager Bookkeeping
What Rent Manager does well, where its accounting breaks, and how REA works inside your own instance.
See the Rent Manager 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
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.
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.
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
Frequently Asked Questions
We use Rent Manager's Properties as our jobs. Is that a problem?
Not on its own. It becomes a problem when the mapping is inconsistent, some jobs set up as Properties, others buried as Units under a parent Property, with cost codes tracked in different custom fields depending on who built the job out. REA checks that every job follows the same structure before relying on the reports it produces, then flags the ones that do not.
Does Rent Manager produce a percentage-of-completion or WIP report on its own?
Not a native construction WIP report. Rent Manager will report whatever is stored in the custom fields and GL accounts set up for that purpose, but it does not calculate percentage of completion the way a dedicated job costing platform does. REA builds the WIP schedule from the underlying cost and billing data and checks it against job files, rather than trusting a canned report that assumes a leasing business.
How does REA handle retainage in Rent Manager since it is not a construction platform?
Rent Manager has no built-in retainage feature, so it usually gets tracked through a custom GL account or field someone set up manually. REA checks that retainage is held as a separate receivable or liability rather than recognized as billed revenue or folded into a deposit account meant for something else, and confirms it is released only when the contract terms are actually met.
Ready for Accurate Construction Books in Rent Manager?
Schedule a call with our team to talk through your Rent Manager instance, what it is doing to your construction financials, and what REA would take on.