Real Estate Agents
You know your gross commission. The number that matters is what you kept after splits, marketing, and fees.
What You Actually Keep
A real estate agent closes a $700,000 sale at 2.5% commission. That’s $17,500 gross. Sounds like a strong month. But the brokerage takes their split, maybe 30%. Now it’s $12,250. The photographer, staging, and open house supplies cost $1,800. Transaction coordinator was $400. Mailers and online ads for that listing ran another $600. MLS and lockbox fees. E&O insurance. Gas from three months of showings. By the time everything is accounted for, that $17,500 has become something closer to $8,000. Maybe less.
Most agents track what comes in but not what goes out. You know your gross commission income for the year. Ask yourself what your actual net profit was after every expense and the answer is usually a guess. That guess makes it hard to budget, hard to plan for taxes, and hard to know if your business is actually growing or just getting busier.
Who This Is For
Who This Is For
Solo agents, buyer’s agents, listing agents, team leads, managing brokers, and property managers who also handle transactions. Whether you’re independent or part of a brokerage in Long Beach, the South Bay, or anywhere in Greater LA.
What Makes It Tricky
What Makes It Tricky
Commission-based income that swings wildly month to month. Dozens of small expenses that feel insignificant on their own. Self-employment tax obligations that nobody prepared you for. Marketing spend that’s hard to connect to results. And if you’re building a team, split structures that make profitability hard to measure.
The Small Costs Add Up
Real estate expenses don’t come in one big invoice. They show up as $50 here and $200 there. Professional photography for a listing. A boosted Instagram post. Client closing gifts. New business cards. A Zillow Premier Agent subscription. Your CRM software. Continuing education credits. None of these feel like major expenses when you pay them. Over 12 months, they add up to thousands of dollars that never got tracked properly.
When expenses aren’t organized, two things happen. First, you lose deductions at tax time because you can’t document what you spent. Second, you have no idea which activities are actually worth the money. You might be spending $500 a month on a lead generation platform that hasn’t produced a closing in six months, but you’d never know it without tracking the numbers.
Marketing Spend
Marketing Spend
Agents often spend $10,000 to $20,000 a year on marketing without a clear picture of where it goes. We track every marketing expense so you can see what you’re spending by category and start evaluating what’s generating results versus what’s just noise.
Transaction Costs
Transaction Costs
Brokerage splits, TC fees, MLS dues, lockbox subscriptions, E&O insurance, sign rentals. We track these per transaction so you know your real net on every deal. Not just the gross commission number that shows up on your 1099.
Nobody Withholds for You
When you worked a W-2 job, taxes were handled before you ever saw the money. As an independent agent, every commission check hits your account in full. It feels like you earned all of it. You didn’t. Roughly 30 to 40 percent of that money belongs to the IRS and the state of California, depending on your total income.
Self-employment tax alone runs 15.3% on top of your regular income tax. If you had a good year and closed $200,000 in gross commissions, you could owe $50,000 or more in combined federal and state taxes. The IRS expects you to pay quarterly estimated taxes throughout the year. Miss those payments and you owe penalties on top of the bill. This catches agents off guard every single year, especially in a hot market when closings come fast and it feels like there’s plenty of money to go around.
Quarterly Estimates
Quarterly Estimates
We track your income as it comes in and help you stay on top of estimated payments throughout the year. No more scrambling in April to figure out what you owe and whether you can cover it.
Deductions You're Missing
Deductions You're Missing
Vehicle mileage is the big one. Agents drive constantly and most don’t track it consistently. Home office, continuing education, professional memberships, marketing, and client-related expenses all reduce your tax burden. But only if they’re documented throughout the year, not reconstructed in a panic before the filing deadline.
When the Business Grows
At some point, a successful agent starts thinking about building a team. You bring on a showing assistant. Then a buyer’s agent. Maybe an admin to handle paperwork. The income structure changes. Now you’re earning overrides on your team’s production but also paying splits, covering desk fees, and possibly running payroll. The question shifts from “how much did I close” to “is this team actually more profitable than working solo.”
That question is impossible to answer without clean books. We help agents and team leads in Long Beach and across Greater LA track income and expenses in a way that shows the real financial picture. Whether you’re a solo agent who needs to get organized or a team lead figuring out if your growth model is working, having accurate numbers changes how you make decisions. You stop guessing and start planning with something solid underneath you.
Team Profitability
Team Profitability
Income from your own closings versus overrides from team members. Expenses that are yours versus shared team costs. We set up your QuickBooks so you can see whether the team model is actually increasing your bottom line or just creating more activity and more overhead.
Clean Books for What Comes Next
Clean Books for What Comes Next
Whether you’re applying for a mortgage yourself, looking at opening your own brokerage, or just trying to understand your business better, organized financials give you clarity. Your CPA gets a clean file at tax time. And you get numbers you can actually use throughout the year to run your business with confidence.
Long Beach's Trusted Bookkeeping Partner
The Next Step:
A Quick Discovery Call
Tell us where things stand with your books. We'll listen, ask a few questions, and give you a clear quote to get it handled.
