Office guide

Module 10 — Accounting Basics

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Part of Broker / Staff Basic Training.

This module covers RealDesk Accounting — the general ledger, trust reconciliation, vendor bills, tax returns, and financial statements under the Accounting and Vendors menus. It assumes you have completed Module 6 and Module 7 for deal payments, and Module 9 for operational earnings reports.

Agent expenses vs vendor expenses: Module 5 covers Expense Manager — charges recovered from agents on commission. This module covers vendor expenses — brokerage bills (rent, software, signage, CRA remittances, and similar) recorded under Vendors.

Contents

Accounting menu map

Menu Use for
Vendors Vendor directory, vendor bills, vendor payments
Accounting Bank reconciliation, outstanding payments, tax return, financial statements, chart of accounts, journal entries, transactions report
Financial (Modules 5–7) Agent deductions, EFT/cheque batches, commission-side money movement
Reports (Module 9) Financial Statistics, compliance, and operational analytics

RealDesk Accounting syncs payment and journal activity from RealDesk into the general ledger. Trust accounts linked to RealDesk Accounting appear on reconciliation and financial statement screens.

Set up vendors

  1. Open Vendors.
  2. Search by name, email, or phone; filter by Type, Status, or EFT Filter when EFT is enabled.
  3. Click Add Vendor to create a record — name, contact details, default expense account, and EFT banking when paying electronically.
  4. Use row actions to open Expenses or Transactions for an existing vendor.

Vendor types (configured under Vendor Types) control default GL accounts and reporting groupings. Keep inactive vendors deactivated instead of deleting when they have history.

Record vendor expenses

  1. Open Vendors → Expenses.
  2. On Regular Expenses, filter by Status (Unpaid, Partial, Paid), date range, office, and account.
  3. Click Add Expense — choose vendor, Expense Date, Posting Date (defaults to the expense date), reference, line items with Office when multi-office applies, and tax.
  4. Save — the expense posts to RealDesk Accounting when integration is enabled.

Recurring Expenses tab: create blueprints for rent, subscriptions, or other repeating bills. Blueprints generate regular expense rows on their schedule.

Import CSV (when shown): bulk-load vendor bills from a template — preview valid rows before commit.

Tip: Vendor expenses are brokerage operating costs. Do not use this screen for agent Expense Manager balances — those are created in Module 5.

Pay vendor expenses

  1. Open Vendors → Payments.
  2. Filter by vendor, method, date range, or reference.
  3. Click Record Payment — select vendor, payment method (cheque, EFT, PAD, cash, or other), source account, and the open expense(s) to apply.
  4. Save — payment status on linked expenses updates to Partial or Paid.

You can also start payment from an expense row action on Expenses. GST/HST return remittances may open this workflow prefilled after you file a return.

Month-end prep — outstanding payments

Before bank reconciliation, clear cheques and EFTs that have already left the account but are not yet marked cleared in RealDesk.

  1. Open Accounting → Payments Currently Outstanding.
  2. Set Show all payments written on or before to your statement ending date.
  3. Filter by Account and Type (Cheque, Electronic, or All), then click Submit.
  4. For each cleared row, enter Date deposited (YYYY-MM-DD).
  5. Click row Save or Save All at the bottom to persist cleared dates.

Outstanding Electronic rows are EFT batches not yet marked cleared. Cheques appear when a cheque number exists and no deposit date is recorded.

Tip: Print cheques from Cheque Payments and process EFT batches in EFT Payments (Module 7) before entering cleared dates here. Cleared dates flow into bank reconciliation and remove rows from future outstanding lists.

Start a bank reconciliation

  1. Open Accounting → Bank Reconciliation.
  2. Select Account — a trust or GL account linked to RealDesk Accounting.
  3. Enter Reconciliation Date — your bank statement ending date.
  4. Enter Balance per Statement — ending balance from the statement.
  5. Click Load Reconciliation.

Resume Draft lists in-progress reconciliations — open one to continue or Delete drafts you no longer need.

Large accounts may show a loading banner while the transaction snapshot builds asynchronously.

Read the reconciliation summary

After load, review the summary panels:

  • Opening balance — from the prior finalized reconciliation for this account
  • Payments cleared / Deposits cleared — count and total for rows you mark cleared (labels swap on credit card accounts)
  • Cleared balance — calculated from opening balance and cleared activity
  • Statement balance — editable while in draft; should match your bank statement
  • Difference — must be within system tolerance before Finalize Reconciliation enables

If Difference is not zero, work through uncleared items, outstanding payments (previous section), or missing GL entries before finalizing.

Mark cleared transactions

The transaction table lists GL and RealDesk-sourced lines for the account.

  1. Toggle the cleared checkbox on each row that appears on your bank statement.
  2. Use Payment type and Method filters to narrow the list.
  3. Click Deposits, Payments, or All slicer buttons to focus on one direction at a time.
  4. Use the cleared column header checkbox to mark or uncheck all visible rows in bulk — large reconciliations process bulk updates in chunks and refresh summary totals when finished.
  5. Click Refresh if new GL entries synced since you opened the reconciliation.

Trust accounts with a separate trust ledger may show additional tabs (trust ledger, withholdings, GICs) alongside RealDesk-only and GL-only sections. Clear rows on each tab that applies to your statement.

Update cleared dates on individual rows when your process requires a specific clear date.

Upload the bank statement

While the reconciliation is still in draft:

  1. Attach Upload bank statement (PDF or image).
  2. Confirm the file uploaded — you can Download it later from the finalized reconciliation view.

Store the statement with your month-end records. Finalize only when Difference is within tolerance.

Finalize and approve reconciliation

  1. Click Finalize Reconciliation when Difference is acceptable — RealDesk locks the reconciliation and records Prepared by and timestamp.
  2. A designated approver clicks Approve & Sign when your office requires a second signature.
  3. Click Download PDF Package for the combined reconciliation PDF.

Reopen returns a finalized reconciliation to draft when corrections are needed before approval.

Review completed reconciliations

The Bank Reconciliation index lists finalized reconciliations grouped by account with statement date, ending balance, PDF link, approval status, and View / Reopen actions.

Use this list to confirm each trust account is reconciled through the period end before you close the month in financial statements and tax filing.

Prepare a GST/HST return

Menu label matches your brokerage tax setting (GST, HST, or similar).

  1. Open Accounting → GST Return (label varies).
  2. Set Return End Date — last day of the reporting period.
  3. For your first return, set Return Start Date to exclude historical GL before go-live.
  4. When a prior return exists, the start date auto-fills to the day after the last filed period end.
  5. Click Load Return (or open a Resume Draft).

The loaded return shows summary lines — taxable sales, input tax credits, and net tax — built from the same underlying GL data as Financial Statements → GST/HST Summary Report.

Finalize, file, and remit tax

  1. Review return detail lines against your expectations and the GST/HST Summary report for the same dates.
  2. Click Finalize to lock totals and generate the return PDF.
  3. After CRA filing, click Mark as Filed — RealDesk posts the journal entry that resets tax GL accounts for the period.
  4. When net tax is owing, click Make Payment to open vendor expense payment prefilled for the remittance.
  5. When net tax is a refund, click Receive Refund to post the receiving journal entry.
  6. Download PDF for your records.

Reopen reverts a finalized return that has not yet been marked filed. Completed returns on the index show finalized, filed, and paid timestamps.

Open Financial Statements

  1. Open Accounting → Financial Statements.
  2. Select a tab — Trial Balance, General Ledger, Profit & Loss, Balance Sheet, or GST/HST Summary Report.
  3. Open Filters, set the date range (and Office(s) when multi-office applies), then click Load Reports.
  4. Use Export (PDF) or Export (Excel) on the loaded tab without switching away.

Run financial statements after reconciliation and vendor activity for the period are complete — statement balances should already tie to the bank.

Trial Balance

Use Trial Balance for a period-end debit and credit listing of every GL account.

  1. Set From Date / To Date.
  2. Enable Show accounts with zero balance when you need the full chart listed.
  3. Click Load Reports — debits should equal credits across the brokerage.

Investigate out-of-balance accounts before filing tax or distributing P&L to ownership.

General Ledger

Use General Ledger for transaction-level detail behind statement totals.

  1. Set From Date / To Date.
  2. Optionally narrow Office(s), Account, or Deal Number.
  3. Enable Show Summary when you only need rolled-up totals by account.
  4. Click Load Reports — follow deal links when shown to trace activity back to a file.

Use General Ledger to research reconciliation differences, vendor postings, and tax journal entries.

Profit and Loss

Use Profit & Loss for income and expense activity over a period.

  1. Choose Fiscal Year or Custom Date Range in filters.
  2. Set Office(s) when scoping to specific offices.
  3. Click Load Reports — review income, cost of goods sold, and expense sections.

Compare P&L expense totals to vendor expense activity and payroll-related postings for the same period.

Balance Sheet

Use Balance Sheet for assets, liabilities, and equity as of the period end.

  1. Choose Fiscal Year or Custom Date Range.
  2. Click Load Reports — trust account balances should align with finalized bank reconciliations.

Review trust liability lines against outstanding deal deposits and uncleared payments when balances look off.

GST/HST Summary Report

Use GST/HST Summary Report to review tax amounts for any date range independent of a formal return workflow.

  1. Set From Date / To Date and optional Office(s).
  2. Click Load Reports.
  3. Compare totals to your loaded GST/HST return before finalize, or to CRA notices after filing.

Journal entries for adjustments

When reconciliation, tax, or month-end review surfaces a correcting entry:

  1. Open Accounting → Journal Entries.
  2. Filter existing entries by date or reference.
  3. Click Add Journal Entry — add balanced debit and credit lines with optional deal and party references.
  4. Save & Submit when debits equal credits.

Prefer deal-level corrections on Payments when the issue is trust activity on a file. Use journal entries for GL-only adjustments (reclasses, accruals, write-offs) that do not belong on a deal.

Month-end checklist

Work in this order for a typical Canadian brokerage month:

  1. Vendor bills — post expenses; record payments for amounts paid this period.
  2. Deal payments — confirm EFT and cheque batches from Module 7 are processed.
  3. Outstanding payments — enter Date deposited for cleared cheques and EFTs.
  4. Bank reconciliation — load, clear lines, upload statement, finalize (and approve when required) for each RealDesk Accounting trust account.
  5. Financial statements — trial balance, then P&L and balance sheet; drill GL for exceptions.
  6. GST/HST — load return, reconcile to GST/HST Summary, finalize, file, remit or receive refund.
  7. Operational follow-up — Outstanding Deposits Report for deal deposits still expected (receive on deal Payments, not on vendor expenses).