Keeping books for more than one agency entity
An agency principal with a sales company, a rentals company or a branch in another country can keep each set of books apart and switch between them safely.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Real estate businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Many agency principals own more than one company. There is the sales agency, a separate company for rentals, perhaps a franchise office in the next town, and sometimes a property-holding entity that owns the building the agency works from. Each has its own bank account, its own tax registration and its own year-end, and each needs its own books.
The danger is not complexity. It is the ordinary mistake: a rental deposit receipted in the sales company, a commission invoice raised in the wrong name, a supplier bill paid from the books that never owed it. Every one of those takes far longer to unpick at year end than it took to make.
Here is how to set up several agency entities in Achekam so that each set of books stays its own, and the habits that stop postings from landing in the wrong place.
One workspace for each entity
A business signs up in Achekam as a business, chooses its country, and gets its own workspace, its own books and its own web address on the Achekam domain. The person who signs up becomes its administrator. Each workspace has its own double-entry ledger, with a standard chart of accounts created when the books first open; accounts can then be added, renamed or switched off.
So the rule is simple: one legal entity, one workspace. The sales company signs up once, the rentals company signs up separately, and so does any other entity that files its own returns. Nothing is shared between their ledgers. For South African entities that trade as property practitioners, the PPRA's audit compliance page sets out the audit, trust account and accounting requirements the Property Practitioners Act places on business property practitioners.
This also handles groups that cross borders. An agency group with a South African company and a Kenyan one registers each workspace under its own country, so each carries the right country from the first day.
Switching books from the header
The same person usually works in several of these entities: the principal, the bookkeeper, the financial manager. Someone who works in several workspaces switches books from the header, and a coloured bar shows whose books are open.
That bar is the single most useful safeguard you have. Before posting anything, the person entering it can see at a glance which entity's books they are in. It is worth agreeing as a team that nobody posts a transaction without first glancing at it, in the same way nobody signs a cheque without reading the name on it.
Appointing your accounting firm to each entity
Many agency groups use one accounting firm for all their entities. In Achekam, a business appoints its accounting firm by the firm's Achekam address or firm code, as accountant, auditor, tax practitioner, payroll provider or adviser, with an access level, and the firm accepts or declines.
Because the appointment is made by the business, each entity appoints the firm separately. The rentals company might give the firm bookkeeping access while the sales company appoints it only as tax practitioner; the choice is per entity. The firm must already be on Achekam, since a business cannot appoint an accountant who is not.
Either side can end an appointment later. The firm then loses access, and the books stay with the business.
What the firm works in for each entity
An appointed firm works directly in the business's own ledger, with no copy made. Whatever the firm posts appears in that entity's own accounting screens, and there is no export and re-import between your books and theirs.
What the firm's people can do depends on the access level you granted. Bookkeeping access covers the accounting, but not the business's users, settings or payment gateways. Review access is read-only. A firm member opening an entity's books must also meet that entity's own IP allowlist and two-factor rules, so a security setting you choose for one company applies to anyone who opens it.
For the firm, this means the same thing your own staff see: one coloured bar per entity, and a switch in the header to move between them.
Habits that keep each posting in the right books
Separate workspaces do most of the work. A few habits do the rest.
- Name each entity exactly as registered. Two workspaces called "Sales" and "Sales (new)" will be confused within a month.
- Give each entity its own bank account. It is hard to keep books apart when money is mixed.
- Look at the coloured bar before every posting. Make it a habit, not a check you do when something feels wrong.
- Record a charge between entities in both sets of books. If the sales company pays rent to the property company, each workspace records its own side, and the two should agree.
- Close each month in each entity. Months can be soft-closed, hard-closed and locked, and a closed month refuses postings from every source. Once a month is closed, nothing dated in it can be posted there by mistake later.
- Agree who owns each set of books. One person per entity, responsible for reviewing it every month, catches stray entries quickly.
If agents are employed by different entities, each entity also runs its own payroll; see paying agents' commission through payroll. And when a sale fails in one company, the right correction to the commission invoice is made in that company's books only.
Getting the structure in place
List every entity in your group that has its own registration and bank account. Set up a workspace for each one, appoint your accounting firm to each with the access level that entity needs, and agree with everyone who posts that the coloured bar is checked every time. The rest is routine.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
