REA.co Real Estate Accounting & Tax

Streamline Your Real Estate Success With Buildium Bookkeeping for Owner Operators

Buildium's property structure was designed for management companies producing owner statements for outside clients, which forces entity separation by default. Owner operators don't have that external pressure, so new acquisitions often get added as another property in the same instance rather than a distinct set of books. The result is a portfolio that looks organized until a lender asks for entity-level numbers.

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Owner Operators Accounting Inside Buildium

What Changes When You Run This Vertical On This Platform

Where it breaks

Acquisitions added as properties, not entities

When an owner operator buys another property, the fastest path in Buildium is to add it under the existing instance: another property record, sometimes the same bank account, sometimes a chart of accounts copied from the last one. Buildium has no equivalent of the owner-disbursement rule that forces trust accounts to stay separate, so there's nothing stopping a loan draw, a security deposit, or a capital call from moving between LLCs as an untagged transfer. Nobody catches it because nobody outside the operator is reading the books. It surfaces when a refinance or a sale requires entity-level statements on short notice.

How REA handles it

We map the ledger to each LLC

REA sets up Buildium so the chart of accounts and the bank feed follow the legal entity, not the property address. Each LLC gets its own account tree, and any money that moves between entities gets booked as an intercompany loan or capital contribution instead of a plain transfer. Where an operator also runs an association inside the same instance, reserve and operating funds get separated the same way rental and HOA money should be: on paper, before anyone asks. When a lender or a buyer wants entity-level financials, the numbers already exist. Nobody has to reconstruct two years of transfers under deadline.

What we check in your Buildium instance

  • Bank accounts mapped one-to-one with LLCs
  • Intercompany transfers booked, never left unlabeled
  • Capital improvements capitalized, not expensed by default
  • Reserve funds walled off from rental cash
  • Chart of accounts mirrors the legal entity
  • Association ledgers kept separate from rental ledgers

The Full Scope of the Engagement

Two Pages Carry the Detail

This page covers what is specific to running Owner Operators books in Buildium. The complete service scope, process, and pricing conversation live on the two pages below.

The vertical

Owner Operators Accounting

Full scope, monthly process, property types, FAQs and the team on the account.

See the Owner Operators 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

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

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

230+

Property Accountants

30M+

Commercial Sq. Ft.

Up to 50%

Saved vs In-House

Every month

On-Time Close

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Running Owner Operators On Something Else?

Same Vertical, Different Platform

Frequently Asked Questions

I own every property myself. Why do I need entity-level books in Buildium if no one outside is asking for a statement?

Because Buildium won't create that separation for you. It's built around owner statements going to outside clients, so when there's no outside client, nothing forces each LLC's transactions to stay on its own books. Properties get added to the same instance, transfers between entities go unlabeled, and it holds together until a lender, a partner, or a sale requires entity-level financials on short notice. Setting the chart of accounts up by entity now means those numbers are a pull, not a two-week scramble.

I also self-manage the HOA for one of my developments in the same Buildium account as my rentals. Does that create a problem?

It can, if the two sides share a chart of accounts. Reserve contributions and operating assessments on the association side need their own account tree, separate from your rental income and operating cash, or the two start blending in the general ledger. A capital improvement funded from reserves can get coded as a rental expense, or rental cash can get treated like it's available for association use. Keeping the fund types on separate books inside the one instance is the fix.

Can Buildium track multiple LLCs without me manually keeping tabs on transfers between them?

Buildium will let you hold as many entities as you want inside one instance, but it doesn't flag a transfer between them as anything unusual. A payment from one LLC's account covering another LLC's expense just looks like a normal transaction unless someone books it as an intercompany loan or contribution. REA sets that up when we take over the books: every cross-entity movement gets labeled and tracked, so each LLC's balance sheet stays accurate and a lender or partner can see it independently.

Ready for Accurate Owner Operators Books in Buildium?

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