The Power of Real Estate-Focused Bookkeeping

By Andy Mulholland

He has a background in leading a top real estate team for over a decade and an understanding of the critical role of clear financials, Andy, along with his wife Ellyn, a seasoned real estate CFO, co-founded Simple-Numbers.

Are you running a team but noticing you’re working more and earning less? If you’re like many strong agents, the decision to build a team probably felt logical. You had more leads than you could manage, more administrative work than you wanted to handle alone, and it seemed like bringing on a few agents would help you grow while freeing up some of your time. What starts as a smart step forward can slowly turn into something very different. Instead of gaining more support, many team leaders find themselves pulled deeper into day-to-day issues, managing more problems, and watching their profit shrink even though the team keeps expanding.

I understand why that happens because I went through the same process. The challenge isn’t your agents or your work ethic. The real issue is that the financial picture you’re relying on isn’t giving you the truth you need to build a strong business.

Why aren’t your books giving you the information you need? Most team leaders hire a bookkeeper or CPA to keep their books organized. These professionals are knowledgeable, but they usually don’t understand the structure of a real estate team. They haven’t built one. They haven’t coached team leaders. They haven’t dealt with the overlap between personal production and team production. Because of that, they don’t calculate the number that matters most: your adjusted net profit.

Adjusted net profit tells you how healthy your business is when your own production is removed. Without it, your books show a level of profit that looks fine on paper but doesn’t match reality. Your transactions inflate the numbers and hide weak spots in your model, and that makes it hard to understand why your team isn’t performing the way you expected.

Adjusted net profit is the clarity real estate teams need. When we calculate adjusted net profit, we look at your business as if you stepped out of production today. We factor in what it would cost to pay an agent to handle your deals. We remove indirect expenses that are in your books only for tax purposes. We separate your work from the business so you can see whether the model stands on its own.

That number changed everything for me. It was the key to stepping out of production and building a team that could operate without me being the one closing transactions. As a parent with four kids who loves to travel, that freedom mattered, and it wouldn’t have been possible without understanding the true profit of the business.

This is how you take control of your team’s future. Once you see your adjusted net profit, the real gaps in your model become obvious. Maybe your splits need to be rebalanced. Maybe your expenses have crept up. Maybe your agents aren’t producing at the level your model requires. Whatever the issue is, you finally have a clear, objective way to identify it and fix it.

Stop letting unclear numbers dictate how your business runs. You need books built for real estate teams, not generic accounting, so you can understand your adjusted net profit with confidence and make decisions that move you forward.

When you know the true health of your model, you can correct what isn’t working and build a team that stays profitable even when you’re not the one selling.