Real estate · 🇺🇸 United States
Fourteen entities, fourteen bookkeeping approaches
A property operator with an SPV per asset had no consistent way to compare performance between them.
US real estate operator, 14 SPV entities. Client identity withheld — we publish names only with written permission, so this engagement is described by its shape rather than by who it was.
14
Entities standardised
1
Chart of accounts
Per-asset
Reporting introduced
The situation
- Each property sat in its own SPV, several set up by different accountants at different times.
- There was no way to compare operating performance between assets, and investor reporting was assembled by hand each quarter.
What we found
- Fourteen different charts of accounts, so no line item was comparable.
- Capitalisation policy applied inconsistently — the same category of spend was capitalised in some entities and expensed in others.
- Intercompany funding between the holding entity and SPVs recorded inconsistently.
What we did
- Standardised the chart of accounts across all fourteen entities.
- Applied a single documented capitalisation policy and restated where it had diverged.
- Introduced consistent intercompany treatment and per-asset reporting.
The outcome
- Asset-level performance is now comparable, and investor reporting is generated rather than assembled.
- Standardising capitalisation changed reported returns on several assets — some up, some down.
What we'd flag
Restating capitalisation policy made two assets look worse than the investors had previously been told. That conversation had to happen.
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