Industries
Accounting and Tax for Property Management Companies
Most of the money in a property manager’s account belongs to somebody else, and the books have to be able to prove whose.
Owner funds are held, not earned
Rent collected on behalf of an owner is the owner’s money. So are security deposits, which in most arrangements are held rather than owned and have their own handling requirements.
That makes property management accounting closer to a law firm’s trust account than to an ordinary service business: a ledger per property and per owner, reconciled against the bank, showing at all times how much of the balance belongs to whom. Commission and management fees are the company’s revenue. The rest is passing through.
A set of books that treats gross collections as revenue reports a company several times its actual size and cannot answer the only question that matters when an owner asks it: where is my money.
The reporting obligations owners forget you have
Managers generally have information return obligations — to owners for the rent collected on their behalf, and to contractors paid for maintenance and repairs during the year. Those are annual, they have deadlines, and they require details collected before the work is done rather than chased in January.
Getting a tax identification number from a contractor at the point of hire takes a minute. Getting it from one who has since disappeared takes considerably longer.
- Residential long-term rental management
- Short-term and vacation rental management, including lake properties
- Commercial and mixed-use portfolios
- HOA and community association management
- Managers handling maintenance through their own crews
Short-term units bring accommodations tax into the picture — state and local, filed separately, and only partly handled by booking platforms. Where a manager takes bookings directly, that obligation sits with the business. Short-term rental hosts covers the rules those properties fall under.
The services behind this
Industry pages describe how our work applies to a sector. These are the services themselves.
Bookkeeping
Clean monthly books, reconciled accounts and reports you can actually use.
Learn moreTax Preparation
Federal and South Carolina returns for individuals, families and business owners.
Learn moreBusiness Formation
LLCs, corporations, EINs and South Carolina registrations, set up tax-ready.
Learn moreFrequently asked questions
Is rent I collect my revenue?
No. Rent collected on behalf of an owner is the owner’s money; your revenue is the commission and management fees. Books that treat gross collections as revenue report a company several times its real size and cannot show whose money is whose.
How should security deposits be handled?
As funds held rather than owned, tracked per tenant and per property and reconciled to the bank. They are the item most likely to be questioned, and pooled deposits with no per-property ledger cannot answer the question.
What information returns do we have to issue?
Generally to owners for rent collected on their behalf, and to contractors paid for maintenance during the year. Both are annual with deadlines, and both need details collected at the point of hire — chasing a tax ID in January from a contractor who has moved on is the avoidable version.
We manage short-term rentals too. What changes?
Accommodations tax, filed separately to state and local authorities and only partly handled by platforms. Where you take bookings directly, the obligation is yours — see short-term rental hosts.
Not the question you had? The full tax FAQ covers more ground, and our client reviews say what the work is actually like.
Other industries we work with
Nonprofits
Exempt status is not the same as no filing obligation — and the bookkeeping that supports a 990 is not ordinary bookkeeping.
Learn moreReal Estate Investors
Rental property is one of the few areas where the tax treatment can matter as much to the return as the rent does.
Learn moreRestaurants & Food Service
Thin margins, daily cash movement, tipped employees and high staff turnover — restaurant books go wrong faster than almost any other sector’s.
Learn moreContractors & Trades
For the independent tradesperson, the tax problem is rarely the return — it is the quarterly payments and the mileage records nobody kept.
Learn moreHealthcare Practices
Practice income arrives late, unevenly and net of adjustments — which makes cash accounting and tax planning unusually easy to get wrong.
Learn moreE-commerce Sellers
Selling online from South Carolina means one income tax return and a sales tax question that can involve many states.
Learn moreConstruction Businesses
For a builder, the question is never how the business did last year — it is whether this job is making money right now.
Learn moreTrucking & Logistics
Almost nothing about an owner-operator’s return works the way a normal small business return works — starting with the meal deduction.
Learn moreSalons, Barbers & Booth Renters
Two completely different tax situations happen under one salon roof, and most people in the chair have never been told which one they are in.
Learn moreShort-Term Rental Hosts
Three questions decide how a short-term rental is taxed, and none of them is how much it earned.
Learn moreChildcare & Daycare
Home daycare is the one small business the tax code gives its own exception to the home office rules — and almost nobody claims it properly.
Learn moreReal Estate & Insurance Agents
Commission income arrives in lumps, nothing is withheld from it, and the deduction list is longer than almost anyone claims.
Learn moreAuto Repair & Body Shops
In South Carolina the parts on a repair order are taxable and the labour generally is not — which means the sales tax line runs straight through every invoice you write.
Learn moreChurches & Ministries
A minister is an employee for income tax and self-employed for Social Security at the same time — and almost every mistake in church payroll starts there.
Learn moreManufacturing & Machine Shops
Inventory is what separates a manufacturer’s books from every service business on this site — and it is where the profit figure is either right or meaningless.
Learn moreFarms & Agriculture
Farming has its own tax return, its own deadlines and a method of levelling out good and bad years that nobody else is allowed to use.
Learn moreAttorneys & Law Firms
A law firm keeps two sets of money apart, and one of them is not the firm’s. That single fact makes legal bookkeeping a discipline rather than a variation.
Learn moreLandscaping & Lawn Care
A business that earns most of its money in seven months cannot use an annual average for anything — least of all its tax payments.
Learn moreFitness Studios & Gyms
Money taken in January for a year of membership is not January’s income — and a studio that books it as though it were has no idea how it is doing.
Learn moreFood Trucks & Mobile Vendors
A restaurant owes tax to one municipality. A food truck can owe it to five, and the difference is where it parked.
Learn moreCleaning & Janitorial
In a business where labour is most of the cost, how the people are classified is not an administrative detail — it decides whether the model works.
Learn moreStaffing & Temp Agencies
For a staffing agency payroll tax is not a cost line. It is the business model, and a point of margin either way decides the year.
Learn moreFranchise Owners
The initial franchise fee is not a deduction in the year you pay it, and almost every new franchisee finds that out at the worst moment.
Learn moreConvenience Stores & Fuel
One counter sells items taxed three different ways, plus a state lottery product that is not really a sale at all.
Learn moreEngineering & Architecture
Two provisions treat these firms better than almost any other professional practice, and both are routinely left on the table.
Learn moreTherapists & Counsellors
A private practice is a small business whose owner trained for years in something else entirely — and the accounting usually reflects that.
Learn moreVeterinary Practices
A veterinary practice is a clinic and a pharmacy and a retail shop, and the three are taxed differently on the same invoice.
Learn moreBreweries & Taprooms
A brewery is a manufacturer, a bar and a federally regulated excise taxpayer, and it has to keep books that satisfy all three.
Learn moreIndependent Auto Dealers
Every car on the lot is inventory, financed inventory, and a tax question with a ceiling on it.
Learn morePhotographers & Creatives
The session fee is a service. The prints are goods. That distinction decides whether you owe sales tax, and most photographers have never been asked the question.
Learn moreIT & Software Consultants
Two people doing similar-looking technology work can get different answers on the largest deduction available to them, and the difference is what they are actually selling.
Learn moreEvent Planners & Caterers
Deposits taken twelve months out are not this year’s income, and a business that treats them as such pays tax on money it may still have to refund.
Learn moreHome Health & In-Home Care
Caregivers work in clients’ homes, across long and irregular hours, for an agency paid on someone else’s timetable. Every hard problem in this sector comes from one of those three facts.
Learn moreTell us what you need
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