#REAL ESTATE EXPENSE TRACKER HOW TO#

Don't budget based on your highest-earning months or outliers, even if you've made recent changes to your sales approach. Do you have notably low-income periods reflected on your income records in your real estate agent expenses spreadsheet? You may need to prepare for those same lows in the future. When planning a real estate budget, always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Your income over the past several months can give you a better idea of the overall ebb and flow of sales and commissions throughout the average year.

This is one of the most effective places to start building your real estate agent budget. Look at your income on a monthly basis over the last six months to a year. In this guide, we’ll help you navigate your income’s ebbs and flows and teach you what you need to know to establish a comprehensive real estate agent budget. Other times, you may find it more difficult to make ends meet, and you may feel as though you have no actual income coming in. Real estate agents, like other commission-based workers, may also face periods of lower earnings.

#REAL ESTATE EXPENSE TRACKER HOW TO#

You need to know things agents should include in their budgets, and how to navigate your expenses even as you face potential changes and challenges along the way. Sometimes they show up in the wrong order on bank statements and I miss some so I make sure every transaction is counted by referencing my Zillow profile.How to Build a Real Estate Budget and Maximize Your EarningsĪs an agent, it's critical to have a solid real estate budget in order to determine how much you can afford to spend on business-related expenses. I make sure to verify my deposits with the number of transactions I’ve had on my Zillow page. I sit down a few times a year- print/pull up all of my bank statements, my Venmo history (I pay photographers with this), and calculate every single expense and income deposit. My business expense tracking money date is pretty simple. It’s really easy to use and you can classify the drives as business or personal.

Mileage – I use the app MileIQ to track my drives.

Taxes – CPA’s aren’t cheap but they are so worth it for me! I write off the cost of this as well.

Postage – I love sending cards to my past clients so I record the postage stamps I purchase.

Parking – If I go downtown and have to pay for parking, I add the costs to this section.

Supplies – I track business cards and folders as well as other supplies needed for my business.

Meals – I don’t typically eat out with clients very often, but when I do I track this too.

Gifts – I track client gifts but the amount per client is limited.

Education and seminar – Any continuing education courses or seminars I take I can write off my income!.

Luckily, these are items I can write off.

Dues – as a Realtor, I have a lot of dues I must pay to my brokerage, local association, lockbox, the multiple listing service, and government.

Advertisements and marketing – I include listing photography, online lead sources, and any other marketing I do in this category.

(I’m not a CPA so these are just my interpretations of what to track!) I like using Google sheets because they saves automatically and I can access them from any device.īased on conversations with my CPA, here are the expenses I track as a real estate agent. I currently use a Google sheet to track my expenses. Maybe in the future I will have more regular money dates, but as of now I am okay with the way I currently handle things. But, you have to have the foundation in place before you can go six months without reviewing a profit and loss statement. **side note: If you have good money habits, there is nothing wrong with having rare money dates. (I still skim my bank statements every month in case there are any false charges on there, but I currently do not track my profit and loss monthly.)

Surprisingly, it only took me about an hour! My business expenses are pretty minimal so I prefer “batching” my money dates rather than having a monthly one. This week I sat down and went through all of my expenses from the past six months and created a profit and loss statement.

But, since I’m self-employed I have to track my business expenses for tax purposes. I find it restrictive and intrusive so I avoid it in my personal life. I practice intuitive spending so tracking expenses is really challenging for me.

Real estate expense tracker