Real Estate Agents, Mortgage Brokers, and Insurance Agents Accounting & Bookkeeping Calgary
Accounting for Realtors, Mortgage, Insurance Agents Calgary
The deal closed on Friday. Your gross commission income will arrive once the brokerage, lender, or insurer clears its next pay cycle. It arrives minus desk fees, franchise percentages, and marketing pool deductions.
Meanwhile, the money you risked months ago for staging, digital ads, client entertainment, and listing photography is gone. It hit your own credit card long before the commission arrived.
Every top-producing, commission-based professional in Alberta knows this cash flow gap.
At Radiant Skies Advisory & Accounting, we provide paperless bookkeeping, cloud accounting, and Fractional CFO services. We built them for commissioned businesses.
Our clients are real estate teams, independent mortgage brokers, and insurance agencies in Calgary, Cochrane, Chestermere, Okotoks, and Airdrie.
We turn variable commission income into clean, predictable monthly statements, so you can scale your pipeline with confidence.
Start with a free, no-obligation discussion:
Fixed monthly fee, confirmed upfront. No hourly billing.
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Real Estate, Mortgage, and Insurance Accounting & Bookkeeping Calgary, Cochrane, Chestermere, Okotoks, and Airdrie
Tailored Bookkeeping and Tax Accounting for Commission-Based Businesses
We bridge the gap between your closed deals and your corporate balance sheet. We understand how brokerage commission statements, desk splits, and differing tax classifications change your net income. Here is how we manage the finances of your specific sector:
Real Estate Agents, Teams, and PRECs
Individual Residential and Commercial Agents
We decode your gross brokerage payout statements. We record your gross commissions beside separate line items for desk fees, franchise cuts, and corporate marketing funds. That reveals your net margin per transaction. We track the GST credits on your marketing and staging expenses to offset the GST you collect on commissions.
Personal Real Estate Corporations (PRECs)
Operating through an Alberta PREC changes your tax exposure. We handle the corporate bookkeeping required so your brokerage routes commissions cleanly to your corporation. Your payroll runs through us, and the corporation's finances stay apart from your personal spending. We file your corporate returns, so they stand up to a CRA audit.
Teams and Team Leads
Managing a real estate team introduces variable commission split liabilities. We track each team member's split on its own line. We manage payroll for your administrative assistants, inside sales agents, and transaction coordinators. Your monthly statements then report your team's labour cost.
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Mortgage Brokers and Brokerages
Individual Mortgage Brokers
Lender volume bonuses and finder's fees route through your brokerage. We isolate your net commission earnings from those multi-tier deductions. Mortgage brokerage services are exempt financial supplies, so your commissions do not carry GST. That also means you cannot claim back the GST on your expenses. We absorb that unrecoverable GST into your operating costs, so your net expense figures stay accurate.
Independent Mortgage Brokerages
We track incoming lender originations against outgoing broker split payouts. Each broker's percentage sits as a direct cost of sales, revealing your net margin per agent. We run compliant payroll for your fulfillment staff, compliance officers, and office administrators.
Insurance Agents and Corporate Agencies
Independent Insurance Agents
We build two revenue streams inside your books. Your first-year placement commissions sit apart from your trailing renewal commissions, so you see your predictable base. We manage the tax boundary between your GST-exempt policy placements and your GST-taxable risk management consulting fees.
Insurance Agencies
We track agent commission splits against total agency commission income. Before you spend corporate capital on another agent's book of business, our Fractional CFO forecast tests the purchase. We weigh the value of those trailing renewals against the price and lay out the timeline to recover it.
Book My Free DiscussionWhat Each Radiant Skies Service Delivers for Your Business
We do not just look backward at historical data. We run an active, cloud-managed financial operation that keeps you compliant, sharpens your margins, and informs your next expansion.
Bookkeeping
A clean monthly close for commission statements: Every month, we reconcile your bank accounts and credit cards against your brokerage, lender, or insurer commission sheets. For real estate professionals, we use those reconciliations to compile and file your GST returns. They stand up to a CRA audit.
Accounting
Margin reporting by agent and by month: Stop guessing which marketing channels or team members are profitable. Each month, you receive clear financial statements that compare your gross revenues against what you spent that month to win them. For team leads or brokerages, this report pinpoints which producers drive agency profit and which drain resources.
Payroll
Payroll and commission splits without the crunch: We pay your administrative staff, fulfillment staff, and coordinators accurately and on time, with CRA source deductions handled. At year-end, we prepare and file the slips your payroll requires, so February is not a scramble.
Corporate Tax
Corporate tax for PRECs and brokerages: We prepare and file your corporate tax returns with a focus on each legitimate write-off. We claim the CCA on your business vehicles, staging assets, and office hardware. Your write-offs stand up under CRA scrutiny.
Fractional CFO
A forecast before you scale: Before you hire an executive assistant, open a boutique brokerage, or acquire an insurance book of business, stop. We build the forecast first. We spell out how much gross commission volume your expansion must generate each month to break even.
Book My Free DiscussionChallenges Realtors, Mortgage Brokers, and Insurance Agents Bring to Us
Commission Taxed in Your Own Hands - Is a PREC worth it for me?
Operating through a PREC lets you route commission income into an Alberta corporation taxed at the small business rate. Whether that saves you money depends first on your gross commission income. It depends next on how much of it you draw to live on. Several other factors in your situation count too. We run a corporate structure comparison on your actual numbers. You get a written answer before you spend money on incorporation.
One Business, Two Taxpayers - Why do I file two tax returns?
Once you move to a PREC, brokerage, or agency corporation, you have two taxpayers. The corporation exists as a separate legal entity from you. The corporation files a T2 return reporting its commission revenues and operating expenses. You then file a personal T1 return reporting only the salary or dividends your corporation paid you. We prepare both returns together, so your personal and corporate financial stories tie out.
Taxable Commissions Beside Exempt Ones - Which of my commission streams carry GST?
Real estate commissions are taxable supplies and carry GST. Mortgage finder's fees and insurance policy placement commissions are exempt financial services. You cannot claim GST credits on expenses tied to exempt income. We structure your books from day one so your expenses absorb GST where the CRA requires it.
Income That Swings From Deal to Deal - What do lenders want to see on my mortgage application?
Commission income can swing, so lenders treat independent agents as higher-risk borrowers. They ask for consecutive years of notices of assessment and corporate financial statements that reflect stable income. Through a PREC, we help you pay yourself a consistent salary that mortgage underwriters recognize.
A Book of Business Up for Sale - What is my insurance book worth?
A book of business sells on two numbers: the commissions that renew each year and the new business the book keeps producing. A client who renews a home policy also adds a car, a rental property, or a life policy, and refers a neighbour. Our Bookkeeping Services keep renewal commissions and new-business commissions on separate lines. The statements then reveal how much income renews each year and how much the book adds on top. If you are selling, that gives your buyer proof of both streams, and the second one sets the premium over a bare renewal book. If you are buying, our Fractional CFO forecast tests whether renewals plus new business recover your price.
Book My Free DiscussionModern Tools for Top Producers
You do not manage client relationships or lock in contracts on paper. Your bookkeeping should not run on paper either. QuickBooks® Online keeps a commissioned business's books on its own. Two apps connect to it when the paper piles up, and neither is required.
Receipts and Travel Costs on the Road: Dext®
Your vehicle is your office. When you fill up at the pump, buy a client dinner, or purchase staging assets, you photograph the receipt. Dext® reads the GST, the supplier, and the total, and posts it inside QuickBooks® Online. No more crumpled glovebox receipts.
Paying Team Splits and Suppliers: Plooto®
You authorize outgoing agent splits, contractor payments, and listing vendor invoices with a single tap on your phone. Plooto® sends the electronic funds transfer and records the payment in QuickBooks® Online.
With or Without the Apps, the Month Closes
We reconcile your brokerage deposits, your bank, and your credit cards at each monthly close. The apps change what the close has to work with: the receipt arrives with its image attached, and the split goes out on the day you approve it. We set up the apps you choose and connect them to QuickBooks® Online, as our onboarding playbook describes.
Book My Free DiscussionA Fee Structure Built on Value, Just Like Your Business
In your industry, you do not bill clients by the hour. You show a property, structure a commercial mortgage, or place an insurance policy, and the fee follows the result. You operate on performance, results, and upfront value. We believe your Chartered Professional Accountant should operate the same way.
Our services run on a single, transparent monthly subscription model. It stays fixed and predictable. No stopwatch runs in the background.
No surprise billable hours. Your brokerage statement does not match the deal you closed, or a team member disputes their split. You call, we work through it, and the call adds nothing to your fee. A CRA letter about last year's write-offs gets the same answer.
No peak-season surcharges. A record-breaking month packed with multiple large closing commissions adds nothing to your fee either.
Commercial alignment. Your fee only scales if you intentionally expand your business model. That means moving from an independent agent into a multi-agent team or brokerage. We map out and agree on that new scope together beforehand.
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Stop Tracking Your Commissions in Spreadsheets. Run the Business on Numbers Instead.
Your time belongs at the negotiating table, in the file, and on the pipeline.
It does not belong in a shoebox of receipts, a spreadsheet of team splits, or a guess at how much to set aside for corporate tax.
Your financial statements, closed each month by agent and by stream, tell you what you kept after desk fees and marketing came off.
Book Your Free Discussion
You speak directly with Waheed Khan, CPA, CFA, MBA. Bring your last brokerage statement, your split agreements, and the question you cannot answer from the bank balance. We talk through how the business runs and what its books need to carry. A fixed monthly fee, in writing, follows within the week.
We serve owner-managed small and medium-sized businesses throughout Calgary and the surrounding areas, including Cochrane, Chestermere, Okotoks, and Airdrie.
Scope, Regulatory & Legal Disclaimers
General Information Disclaimer: The financial, compliance, and tax information provided on this page is designed strictly for general educational purposes. It does not constitute, and must not be used as a substitute for, personalized professional accounting, legal, or tax advice tailored to your specific corporate structure or personal financial situation.
Scope Note: Radiant Skies Advisory & Accounting is a professional CPA practice registered with CPA Alberta, providing accounting, tax, and advisory services — not assurance.
Software Subscriptions & Professional Fees: Our fee covers the accounting, compliance, and tax work we do. You pay your QuickBooks® Online, Dext®, and Plooto® subscriptions to those providers directly; our fee does not include them.
Trademark Note: QuickBooks® Online is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc. Dext® is a registered trademark of Dext Software Ltd. Plooto® is a registered trademark of Plooto Inc. Radiant Skies Advisory & Accounting is an independent professional services practice. These companies do not endorse, sponsor, or affiliate with us.