What is real estate?
Property-level reporting, and entity structures that stay separate.
A real estate portfolio's books have to answer a question the standard chart of accounts was never built for: how did this one property perform, on its own, this month. A lender reading a refinance package, a partner reading a distribution statement, and a CPA reading toward Schedule E all want the same thing — net operating income by property, not a blended number across a management company's entire book. We structure the chart of accounts around that unit, whether that means class or location tracking inside QuickBooks Online or the property-level ledger a platform like AppFolio, Buildium, or Yardi already keeps, and we close each property's books to that standard every period.
Most portfolios of any size hold each property, or a small handful, in its own single-member or series LLC — a structure chosen specifically to keep one property's liability from reaching another, and one a lender's non-recourse carve-out often assumes is real. That protection depends on the entity actually being run separately: separate bank accounts, separate books, no funds moving between entities without a documented loan or capital transaction behind it. Commingled funds across LLCs is the first thing a plaintiff's attorney looks for when arguing to pierce the veil, and it's the thing that's hardest to fix retroactively once a claim is already filed. We book at the entity level the structure calls for, not blended for convenience.
Who does what
| Your CapEasy team | Real estate, the reconciliations and reporting behind it, and the questions list that keeps it honest. |
| Your CPA or enrolled agent | Everything that carries a licence in United States — rendered exactly as written: issue compilation, review or audit reports — those are restricted to licensed cpa firms. |
| You | One conversation with one named person, and the decisions that are genuinely yours. |
Real estate in United States
Security deposit rules are set state by state, and they bite
There's no federal standard for how much a landlord can collect, how it has to be held, or how fast it has to be returned — that's entirely state and often municipal law. California's AB 12 cut most caps to one month's rent from July 2024; New York's General Obligations Law 7-103 requires interest-bearing custody on six-plus unit buildings; other states set an itemized-deduction deadline as short as 14 days after move-out. We book the deposit as a liability and track it by tenant so whatever the applicable rule requires — interest accrual, a return deadline, an itemized deduction — is a number sitting in the ledger, not a question someone has to research after the tenant's already moved.
Trust and escrow custody sits with the licensed broker, not the bookkeeper
Where state law requires tenant funds to sit in a designated trust or escrow account, the account is governed by that state's real estate commission — Texas Real Estate Commission rules, Florida DBPR requirements, and similar frameworks elsewhere — and the broker of record holding the license is the one who reconciles and certifies that account. We maintain the ledger detail the account is reconciled against: what's owed, by tenant, matched to what the bank balance should show.
CAM reconciliation is governed by the lease, not a statute
There's no regulator setting how a CAM true-up works — the lease is the entire rulebook: what's recoverable, what's excluded, whether there's a cap on year-over-year increases, and what the base year is if one applies. We apply exactly what each lease specifies against actual expense in the ledger; a question about how a lease's CAM language should be read goes back to you or your attorney, never guessed at on our end.
1099s to owners and vendors
A property manager issues Form 1099-MISC (rents box) to property owners for rent collected on their behalf over $600, and Form 1099-NEC to vendors and contractors paid $600 or more in the year. The management company or owner of record is the filer; what we control is whether the underlying vendor and owner data is clean, coded, and complete well before the January deadline.
What your CPA or enrolled agent receives from us
- Property-level profit and loss and balance sheet for each property or entity, closed monthly
- Security deposit liability ledger by tenant and unit, tied to the bank balance it corresponds to
- CAM or operating-expense reconciliation workpaper per lease, actual versus estimate, ready for the tenant statement
- Loan amortization schedules maintained monthly, with the principal-interest split posted correctly to the general ledger
- Escrow or impound account activity reconciled against the lender's own statement
- Owner distribution statements per property — net operating income and cash available for distribution, ready for owner review
