Family Business Sale for Multigenerational Wealth
July 31, 2025Exit Planning Advisory
September 1, 2025Accounting Cleanup Advisory
Background
A commercial and residential property management company in South Florida, run by an existing client (outside their real estate business), asked us to evaluate their bookkeeping practices. Their books were managed by inexperienced staff, with too many people inputting transactions into QuickBooks. Financial reports were filled with misclassifications, making them unusable for analysis. The business frequently required personal capital infusions due to poor cash flow visibility. They had no process for tracking security deposits or property tax payments, causing frequent cash crunches.
Pain Point
- Inaccurate, unusable financial reports.
- No clear property-level profitability tracking.
- Cash flow issues driven by unplanned property tax payments and security deposit mismanagement.
- No process for capital expense tracking or depreciation.
- Underpricing rents due to lack of market analysis.
Approach
- Placed experienced bookkeepers who worked with in-house managers to develop a sustainable workflow.
- Defined clear roles and responsibilities for transaction entry and approvals.
- Conducted a multi-year cleanup to reconcile and correct historical records.
- Built a complete balance sheet framework to properly record depreciation and improvements.
- Established property-level expense allocation to identify profitability of each unit or property.
- Created a monthly close process with cash reconciliations.
- Designed classed Profit & Loss reports to show property-by-property performance.
- Changed property tax payments to quarterly installments to smooth cash flow and reduce dependence on personal capital.
- Developed forward-looking cash management forecasts.
- Advised on cost segregation studies to maximize depreciation benefits.
- Partnered with CPAs to ensure accurate tax reporting and reclassification for better tax outcomes.
- Worked with banks to deliver clean, reliable financial reports for financing needs.
- Conducted market rent research to ensure rents matched local market rates, significantly increasing profitability.
- Defined break-even costs per property.
- Developed processes to differentiate capital improvements from regular expenses.
- Created systems to properly record and reconcile security deposits, property taxes, rent, and use tax.
- Stayed current on Florida commercial rent tax changes to plan proactively.
- Began implementing new software tools to streamline onboarding, credit checks, and lease generation.
Results
- Delivered clean, accurate, multi-year books suitable for management, financing, and tax planning.
- Enabled clear property-level profitability analysis.
- Improved cash flow management, eliminating unexpected capital infusions.
- Instituted reliable monthly close and cash reconciliation processes.
- Increased rental revenue by aligning pricing with market rates.
- Strengthened relationships with banks and CPAs via improved reporting.
- Enhanced tax planning and compliance.
- Positioned the business for future growth with modernized, scalable systems and workflows.