Real Estate Chart of Accounts: Sample Account List, Numbering, and Structure by Property

A real estate chart of accounts is the list of general ledger accounts a property owner uses to record assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses. It is the base of property accounting in the general ledger, for owners from a single rental house to a multifamily portfolio held by a group of investors.

The chart works best when every property uses the same short list of accounts and a code or tag identifies each property. The owner can then report on one building or on the whole portfolio from the same books.

This guide includes a sample chart with account numbers, a numbering system, ways to track each property, and the mistakes to avoid. It draws on SumIt's data from the family offices on our platform that hold rental property.

Real estate chart of accounts at a glance

What a real estate chart of accounts needs to do

The chart has to produce clean financial statements for each property and for the portfolio. It also has to keep tenant money apart from owner money and give the CPA what tax compliance needs.

Real estate adds balances that a generic chart of accounts doesn't have. Tenants hand over security deposits that the owner must return, so each deposit is a liability with matching cash held for the tenant. Tenants pay rent in advance, which creates prepaid rent. Owners who hire a manager pay property management fees, which need their own line.

Owners also improve buildings. Capital improvements go on the balance sheet and depreciate over time, while repairs and maintenance go straight to the income statement.

Sample real estate chart of accounts

The sample below uses four-digit numbers with gaps between them. It fits residential or small commercial real estate; delete what you won't use.

Assets

Keep land on its own line, because land doesn't depreciate. Capitalized loan costs hold the lender fees paid to get a mortgage. Tenant receivables work as the accounts receivable of a rental business.

Liabilities

AP clearing holds bills between approval and payment when a bill pay tool feeds the ledger. Generic templates leave it out, and in SumIt's data it is the most heavily used line that templates miss.

Equity

When an LLC has several members, track each member with a code on the transaction instead of opening a separate capital line per partner.

Income

Recovery income records what tenants reimburse, such as utilities or shared maintenance. Most owners report 4010 and 4020 together as rental income. Late fees get their own line so the rent figure stays clean.

Expenses

In SumIt's data, the real estate lines our clients use most are rental income, repairs and maintenance, utilities, capex, property tax, HOA, buildings, mortgage payable, and depreciation.

How to number and structure the accounts

A numbering system groups accounts in blocks: 1000s for assets, 2000s for liabilities, 3000s for equity, 4000s for income, and 5000s for expenses. Leave gaps of 10 between numbers so you can add an account later without renumbering.

Don't renumber an account that already holds history. Create a new one and move the balance with a journal entry. Keep the structure to three or four levels, with each level adding real meaning for reporting, so the accounting team codes consistently.

How to track each property: entity, account, or dimension?

Owners have three ways to see results by property, and most end up using a dimension.

Suffixes on the account number

Some guides recommend a suffix per property, such as 4010-01 for rent at the first building and 4010-02 for the second. This works for a handful of properties. Owners who start in property management software or generic accounting software often build this way on top of the default chart.

Each new building adds a copy of every income and expense line. A 20-property portfolio can reach hundreds of accounts, and every sale leaves unused numbers behind.

Each property as its own entity

Many owners hold each property in its own LLC to limit legal risk. The property is then already the entity, and each LLC needs the same short chart of accounts.

In SumIt's data, rent at our clients usually sits in one or two entities. One entity per property shows up in larger portfolios, up to 64 entities at one client, and those clients still add a property dimension.

Dimensions for everything else

A dimension is a code or tag attached to each transaction, separate from the account. Tag every rent receipt and every repair bill with its building, and the same rental income line supports financial reporting by building, by city, or across the portfolio.

In SumIt's data, about 9 in 10 of our clients with rental income use a property dimension, with a median of 12 property codes. Dimensions also carry unit, lender, vendor, or project, so one mortgage payable line with a tag per loan replaces a line per lender.

We recommend codes and tags over classes or prefixes when several properties share one entity. The hierarchy can also go either way: some owners put Property NYC on top with expense lines below it, and others do the reverse. With dimensions, both views come from the same books.

Real estate held inside a family office

A family office holds real estate next to investments, trusts, and operating businesses, so its accounting handles situations a property management company rarely sees:

• A holding company that pays the bills. A parent LLC often covers costs for the property LLCs. Record that with due to and due from accounts between the entities. In SumIt's data, expenses paid on another entity's behalf are the most common intercompany entry.

• Personal-use property. A family home or vacation house sits next to the rentals. Keep its costs apart so the rental results and the tax picture stay clean.

• Development and renovation. Capitalize development costs into construction in progress, split by trade on large projects, and move them to buildings when the work finishes.

• Many cash accounts. Families often bank each LLC separately. In SumIt's data, our clients carry a median of 12 cash accounts, against the two or three most templates include.

Families want to see each property on its own and all real estate holdings and entities in one financial view. Our guide to multi-entity accounting covers how entities, intercompany balances, and consolidation fit together.

Trust accounting is a separate topic

In property management, trust accounting means holding tenant and owner money in segregated bank accounts under state rules. In a family office, a trust is an entity with its own books. This guide doesn't cover either in depth.

Common chart of accounts mistakes

1. An account per lender. Use mortgage payable, notes payable, and line of credit, with a tag per loan.

2. Distributions booked as an expense. Owner distributions belong in equity. Booking them as costs understates profit on every financial report.

3. Repairs and capital improvements in one account. Split capex from repairs so the balance sheet carries improvements and the tax return gets the right depreciation.

4. Land and buildings combined. Land needs its own line because it doesn't depreciate.

5. Deposits recorded as income. A deposit stays a liability until the tenant forfeits it under the lease.

Best practices for setting it up

These best practices come from the charts we see across our clients:

• Keep it short. In SumIt's data, the median chart of accounts has 179 postable accounts for an entire family office, and our target is under 500. A rental portfolio alone needs far fewer.

• Stop at three or four levels. Put further detail, such as unit, tenant, or loan, in a tag.

• Describe every account. A one-line description helps the bookkeeper and the CPA code the same transaction the same way, which keeps the accounting consistent.

• Post depreciation on a schedule. In SumIt's data, 74% of our clients with rental income carry a depreciation account, but only 29% posted to it in the last 12 months. Regular entries keep the books and the tax figures aligned.

• Start with the 80/20 version. Our advice: set up the accounts you need now, because a flexible system lets you rebook later.

• Review once a year. Close unused accounts and check that new properties follow the same structure for tax and compliance reporting.

How SumIt handles property accounting

SumIt is a general ledger for family office accounting, and many of our clients hold rental property. You define the chart of accounts once, and SumIt applies it to every entity ledger, so each property LLC uses the same accounts.

Codes and tags track building, unit, and loan across entities. Bank feeds and bank rules code recurring rent, utility payments, and bank fees, and our Bill.com integration routes bills for approval. For clients who consolidate, the consolidated balance sheet and the net worth statement roll every property up with intercompany balances eliminated.

Owners moving from property management software, generic accounting software, or one QuickBooks file per property get help from our onboarding team, along with an AI-powered onboarding app that maps existing accounts into one standard chart.

If your properties live in separate spreadsheets or files, talk to us and bring your entity list, or see how SumIt works for single family offices.

Frequently asked questions

What are the main categories in a real estate chart of accounts?

There are five: assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses. Most real estate charts number them in blocks, from the 1000s to the 5000s.

Should each property have its own chart of accounts?

Use one chart of accounts for every property and track each property with a dimension, or with a separate entity when it sits in its own LLC. Separate charts make reporting across properties harder, because the accounts stop lining up.

How do you record security deposits?

Record the cash in deposit cash and the matching obligation in tenant deposits. Move the amount to income only when the tenant forfeits it under the lease.