Accounting (Property Mgmt) takes fee from deposit

[Kevin Galus]

All,

I need some guidance on how to account for the following in QuickBooks:

I use a company to find and place tenants in my properties.They charge me ½ of the deposit fee.So here is the issue. I actually never write a check to them.They just deduct their fee and send me the rest. For example, they just rented a single family house for me and charged $1,050 for the security deposit and sent me a check for $525.How do I account for the deposit and expense for the rental company in QuickBooks? Any help would be greatly appreciated it!

[Rob Beland]

You need to account for the amount the tenant paid as the security deposit in the appropriate account. Its not an asset on your balance sheet. You also need to account for the commission you are paying to the company that brought you the tenant. You might do a general journal entry to be sure you are debiting and crediting the appropriate accounts against the cash that theoretically came in and went out.