For house flippers
Know your real profit per flip. Before the closing table tells you
Generic bookkeepers bury your rehab in “Repairs & Maintenance” and blind your exit math. We track every flip as a project: WIP on the balance sheet, true COGS at sale, and variance you see at week 6, not at listing.
Maple Ave flip
rehab budget $72,000| Demo & prep | $8,100 / $8,000 |
|---|---|
| Framing & structural | $14,850 / $15,500 |
| Electrical & plumbing | $19,400 / $14,000 |
| Finishes (committed) | $21,300 / $24,500 |
| Variance flag | rough-in +$5,400 ⚠ |
Sound familiar?
- Your “profit” changes depending on which report you run
- Rehab costs sit in Repairs & Maintenance, inflating expenses on paper and hiding your real margin
- You find out a project went over budget when it’s too late to matter
- Every hard money draw means a week of digging for documentation
- Your CPA re-does your books every spring, and bills you for it
How we run flip books
- Acquisition, rehab, holding, and selling costs captured to the project as WIP: not expensed
- COGS recognized at sale, so each flip shows its true profit in the month it exits
- Budget vs. actual per project at every close. Original budget, committed, spent, variance
- Hard money draw accounting: lender fees split correctly, escrow reconciled, documentation packaged for the next draw
- Per-project classes in QBO: every transaction gets a home, no exceptions
Free download
The Flipper’s Chart of Accounts
The QBO chart of accounts we install for flip clients. WIP structure, holding cost categories, per-project classes, plus the setup guide. Pair it with the Flip Profit Calculator to model your next deal.
Get the template
Flip bookkeeping questions
Why does WIP matter for a flip?
A flip is inventory, not a rental. Rehab costs belong on the balance sheet as work-in-progress, released to cost of goods sold when the property sells. Expensing them as ‘repairs’ misstates every month’s P&L, hides your true margin, and creates tax-time risk your CPA has to unwind at cleanup prices.
How do you track multiple flips at once?
Every project gets its own QBO class. Every invoice, draw, and labor hour lands on its project. You see acquisition, rehab, holding, and selling costs per flip, and a budget-vs-actual variance at every monthly close.
Do you handle hard money draws?
Yes. Draw tracking is core to our flip method, including lender fee splits and construction escrow accounting. Draw documentation is packaged so your next draw funds in days, not weeks.
What does it cost?
Clean Books at $1,247/mo covers up to 3 concurrent projects and 4 entities. Running 5–10 projects with crews? Back Office at $2,997/mo adds AP and job-costed payroll. All scope limits are published on the pricing page.
Flipping 1–3 a year or running 10 with crews?
Either way there’s a published tier for it. The diagnostic tells you which, and what your cleanup would cost.
Book a 30-minute diagnostic