Real estate chart of accounts
An agency earns commission on sales and fees from the properties it manages, and its own books also carry campaign costs to recover from vendors, rent rolls bought from other agencies and commission shared on sales. Each gets its own account here, alongside the general chart.
- By Book Keeping Pros
- Sources checked 15 Oct 2026
What this industry adds
- Advertising and other campaign costs the agency pays upfront for a listing are tracked in Vendor campaign costs to recover, property by property, which makes each one easy to find when the vendor is billed.
- A rent roll bought from another agency goes in Rent rolls purchased, apart from equipment and fit-out. Your accountant can say how it is carried in the years after the purchase.
- A sale can mean paying others: Conjunctional agent fees holds the share another agency bills for working on a sale, Contractor salesperson commission holds what salespeople engaged as contractors invoice, and Contract auctioneer fees holds what a freelance auctioneer charges to call an auction.
- Franchise and network fees, Agency and agent licence fees and Real estate institute membership are costs of working in real estate that the general expense accounts don't cover.
Download the chart
The general accounts and this industry's accounts in one CSV file, in code order, which opens in any spreadsheet program.
Download the CSV fileThe accounts this chart adds
| Code | Account name | Type | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-1500 | Vendor campaign costs to recover | Asset | Advertising and other sale campaign costs the agency has paid from its own funds and is still to recover from the vendor |
| 1-2300 | Rent rolls purchased | Asset | Rent rolls, groups of property management agreements, that the agency has bought from other agencies |
| 5-1100 | Conjunctional agent fees | Expense | The share of a sale's commission that another agency bills for working on the sale with the agency |
| 5-1200 | Contractor salesperson commission | Expense | Commission invoiced by salespeople engaged by the agency as contractors |
| 5-1300 | Contract auctioneer fees | Expense | Fees charged by freelance auctioneers for auctions they call for the agency, where the agency bears the cost |
| 6-2100 | Franchise and network fees | Expense | Fees paid to a franchise group or real estate network for its brand, systems and support |
| 6-2110 | Agency and agent licence fees | Expense | Fees to hold and renew the agency's licence and the licences or registrations of its salespeople and property managers |
| 6-2120 | Real estate institute membership | Expense | Membership fees for a state real estate institute or other industry body |
Illustrative example only: these rows show the method and are not sourced data.
What goes in each column
- Code: A number that sorts the account into its group: 1 for assets, 2 for liabilities, 3 for equity, 4 for income, and 5 and 6 for expenses.
- Account name: The name that appears in your books and reports.
- Type: Asset, Liability, Equity, Income or Expense, which decides whether the account appears on the balance sheet or the profit and loss statement.
- What goes in it: The transactions to record against the account.
How to use it
- Give each listing a tracking category, so campaign costs, auctioneer fees and conjunctional fees can be read against the sale they relate to.
- Code campaign costs the agency pays to Vendor campaign costs to recover with the property address, and clear them when the vendor pays the agency back.
- Commission and property management fees both go in the general Sales account. A tracking category for each side of the business lets monthly reports show sales income and rent roll income apart.
- These accounts hold the agency's own money. Money it collects and holds for landlords, tenants or vendors is kept out of them.
The chart is a CSV file, which opens in a spreadsheet program. It is not set up for importing directly into any particular accounting software, so check the format your software expects before you load the accounts into it.
Related pages
Related terms
Sources
- Key financial terms
business.gov.au, Australian Government. Current at 15 October 2026, released 9 July 2024. Checked 15 October 2026.
© Commonwealth of Australia 2020, licensed under CC BY 3.0 AU. Licence: CC BY 3.0 AU.
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