Monthly Accounting
The service in full: what the close covers, the software setup, and what arrives each month.
Learn moreMonthly Accounting · Palos Verdes, CA
Monthly accounting for Palos Verdes owners with more than one entity.
Books closed every month across operating companies, rental property, and holding entities, so the picture agrees with itself before anyone tries to plan from it.
Book Your Free ConsultationThe problem on the Peninsula is rarely one set of books
Palos Verdes households tend to own more than one thing. An operating business, rental property held in a separate LLC, sometimes a holding entity or a trust in the structure. Each has its own books, often kept by different people in different systems, and frequently to a different standard.
Individually they may all be fine. Together they are where the problems live. Money moves between entities and gets recorded on one side but not the other. An intercompany balance grows for years with nobody agreeing what it represents. A property's basis is never tracked properly, so the number that matters most only surfaces at sale.
The value of monthly accounting here is less about any single ledger and more about the entities agreeing with each other. This page covers the bookkeeping. The coordinated planning it supports sits on our Palos Verdes tax planning page.
What the monthly close covers
Per entity, and then across them.
- 01Reconciliation for each entity
Every account in every entity tied to statements, so no single set of books is the weak link in the group.
- 02Intercompany transfers
Money moving between the business, the property entities, and you recorded on both sides in the same month, so balances agree rather than drift.
- 03Property-level reporting
Income and expense tracked per property, not pooled, which is what makes a genuine performance comparison possible.
- 04Capital versus repair
Improvements capitalised and repairs expensed as the work happens, with the reasoning recorded while anyone still remembers it.
- 05Basis and depreciation
Each property's basis tracked and adjusted as improvements land, so the figure exists before a sale rather than being reconstructed after one.
- 06Statements per entity and combined
Each entity on its own, plus a combined view, because the household decision is rarely about one entity in isolation.
What we usually find in the first close
The pattern in multi-entity structures that grew over time.
- 01Intercompany balances nobody can explain
A due-to and due-from that has accumulated for years, where neither side matches and no one recalls the original transactions.
- 02Improvements expensed as repairs
A roof or a renovation run through the profit and loss, which overstates the deduction now and understates basis at sale.
- 03Properties pooled in one ledger
Several rentals in one set of books, making it impossible to see which is actually performing.
- 04Personal costs inside an entity
Household spending run through a company account, which is both a bookkeeping problem and an exposure one.
- 05An entity nobody is maintaining
A registered LLC with no real books, still filing, still costing an $800 minimum franchise tax, and sometimes no longer serving a purpose.
How the month runs
Feeds connect for every entity, so all of them close on the same cycle rather than the important one being current and the rest catching up annually.
The close lands on a set date, with statements per entity and a combined view. Where money moved between entities during the month, both sides are recorded and reconciled before anything is issued.
Because the same firm prepares the returns, the books close in the shape the filings need, and the K-1s, the property schedules, and the personal return are built from one consistent record rather than three that have to be argued into agreement.
Where this connects
Clean books are the input. These are what they feed.
Tax Planning in Palos Verdes
Coordinated planning across entities, property, and the personal return.
Learn moreTax Preparation in Palos Verdes
Entity and personal returns prepared together, so the K-1s and the 1040 agree.
Learn moreCFO Services
Cash-flow and structure work for households weighing an acquisition, a refinance, or a sale.
Learn moreGet your entities telling the same story.
Book a discovery call. We will look at how the books are kept across your entities today, where they disagree, and what a coordinated monthly close would change.
Book Your Free Consultation No pressure, no obligation. Just clarity.Questions we hear most.
01I have three entities. Do they each need their own books?+
Yes. Separate entities need separate books, and combining them is one of the more expensive shortcuts we see. It undermines the liability separation the structure exists for and makes the returns difficult to prepare defensibly. The reporting can still be presented as a combined view.
02Do you handle rental property bookkeeping?+
Yes, tracked per property rather than pooled. Per-property books are the only way to compare performance honestly, and they are what makes the capital-versus-repair decision and the basis record possible.
03What is an intercompany balance and why does it matter?+
It is what one of your entities owes another, usually created when money moves between them. It matters because an unexplained balance that grows for years can be recharacterised on examination, and because it distorts the financial picture of both entities in the meantime.
04Can you take over from several different bookkeepers?+
Yes, and consolidating is usually the point. The first pass is reconciling what exists and agreeing the intercompany positions, which is a catch-up project quoted separately from the monthly work.
05One of my LLCs is inactive. Should I keep it?+
Often not. An inactive California LLC still carries an annual filing obligation and the $800 minimum franchise tax. Whether to dissolve it depends on what it holds and what it was for, and it is worth a deliberate decision rather than continued drift.