If you’re a property manager juggling tenant calls, maintenance requests, lease renewals, and rent collection — the last thing you want to think about is accounting. Yet every month, the numbers demand your attention. So the question a lot of property managers quietly ask themselves is: do I actually need to hire an accountant, or can I handle this myself?
The honest answer? It depends. But more property managers are capable of doing their own accounting than they think. The bigger issue isn’t skill. It’s having the right system.
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Explore Accounting Features →The Real Reason Property Managers Avoid Their Own Accounting
It’s not that property managers are bad with numbers. Most of them are tracking rent payments, security deposits, and maintenance costs in their heads or on spreadsheets already. The problem is that traditional accounting software was built for accountants. Terms like chart of accounts, equity, accounts payable, and journal entries can make even a confident person feel like they’re reading a foreign language.
So what tends to happen? Property managers either hand everything off to a bookkeeper they rarely talk to, or they wing it with spreadsheets and scramble at tax time. Neither approach is great.
The good news is that modern property accounting tools like Haletale have changed this equation significantly.
What “Doing Your Own Accounting” Actually Looks Like
Let’s be clear about what’s actually involved in day-to-day property accounting. It’s not as complex as it sounds when you break it down:
Tracking income and expenses. Every rent payment that comes in and every cost that goes out needs to be recorded and categorized correctly. This is the foundation of everything. If a tenant pays $500 in rent, that’s income. If you spend $200 on an electrician and $300 on repairs, those are two separate expense categories and recording them correctly is what makes your monthly and annual reports actually useful.
Managing invoices. When you create a rent invoice, send it to the tenant, collect payment, and mark it as paid — that’s a complete accounting cycle. Most property managers are already doing this informally. Formalizing it just means your records are clean and auditable.
Reconciling bank transactions. When you import your bank statement, you should be able to match each transaction to the correct invoice or expense category. If a $500 rent payment hit your account, you can link it directly to the corresponding invoice and it marks itself as paid. This is what keeps your books accurate without manually updating five different places.
Handling deposits and unusual payments. Security deposits, key deposits, first and last month’s rent — these can all live on a single invoice as separate line items. And if a tenant overpays? That excess doesn’t just disappear. It can sit as a credit against their account or get applied to a future invoice.
None of this requires a degree in accounting. It requires a system that’s built around how property management actually works. This is where Haletale’s accounting system can work perfectly well for your workflows.
Where It Gets Complicated
There are situations where professional help genuinely matters:
Tax filing. Preparing and filing taxes especially if you’re managing multiple properties, dealing with depreciation, or operating under a business entity, is where a CPA earns their fee. You don’t need to do this part alone.
Complex portfolio structures. If you’re managing properties across multiple ownership entities, things like equity accounts and liability tracking become more nuanced. You’ll want someone who knows what they’re looking at.
Audit situations. If you’re ever audited, having clean records is your best defense. Doing your own accounting doesn’t hurt here, messy records do.
The takeaway: the day-to-day accounting, absolutely manageable. Year-end tax strategy, consider a professional. These don’t have to be either/or.
The System Makes All the Difference
The reason property managers struggle with accounting usually isn’t knowledge. But it’s tools. When your accounting system is built around property management workflows, the learning curve shrinks dramatically.
For example, instead of manually categorizing transactions using accounting terminology, you can use products and services (like “Monthly Rent” or “Maintenance Fee”) that map to the correct income or expense category behind the scenes. You get the simplicity of plain language, and your accountant or reporting still sees the right categories underneath.
Recurring invoices mean you set up the rent schedule once and the system generates invoices automatically even sending reminders ahead of the due date. When payment comes in, you record it, and the books update accordingly.
Split transactions let you take a single bank deposit or payment and split it across multiple categories. That $800 payment covering both rent and a late fee? Each part goes where it belongs without any manual adjustment.
When your tools are designed for how you actually work, doing your own accounting stops feeling like a burden and starts feeling like just another part of the job.
The Bottom Line
Yes, a property manager can do their own accounting, and many should. You already understand the money flowing through your properties better than anyone. With the right platform, you can keep accurate records, generate meaningful reports, handle invoices and payments professionally, and walk into tax season with clean books ready to hand off.
You don’t need to become an accountant. You just need to stop using tools that weren’t built for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need accounting experience to manage my own property books? No. Basic bookkeeping such as recording income, categorizing expenses, and reconciling payments, doesn’t require formal training. What matters most is consistency and having a system that makes the process straightforward. Purpose-built property management accounting tools are designed specifically so that non-accountants can manage their books confidently.
What’s the difference between bookkeeping and accounting for property managers? Bookkeeping is the day-to-day recording of transactions such as rent collected, expenses paid, invoices created. Accounting is the broader interpretation of those records for reporting, tax preparation, and financial strategy. Property managers can typically handle their own bookkeeping; professional accountants or CPAs are most valuable at the reporting and tax level.
How do I handle security deposits in my accounting? Security deposits should be recorded as a liability, not income, because you may need to return them. A good property accounting system will let you create a single invoice with multiple line items separating first month’s rent, last month’s rent, and the security deposit into their correct categories so your records are accurate from day one.
What happens if a tenant overpays rent? The actual rent amount gets applied to the invoice and marks it as paid. The excess amount can either sit as a credit on the tenant’s account or be applied to any other outstanding invoices they have. Your accounting system should handle this automatically rather than requiring a manual workaround.
How do split transactions work in property accounting? A split transaction lets you take a single payment and assign portions of it to different expense or income categories. For example, if one payment covers both a repair cost and a supply purchase, you can allocate $200 to maintenance and $75 to supplies — keeping your category reporting accurate without needing separate transactions.
When should a property manager hire an accountant? Consider bringing in a CPA for annual tax filing, especially if you’re managing multiple properties or operating under a business entity. Also worth it for situations involving depreciation, capital improvements, or any audit. For everyday bookkeeping, a well-set-up property management accounting platform is usually sufficient.
