BC Real Estate Chart of Accounts for Xero (Realtors, Free)

A real estate practice in British Columbia is a services business that keeps buying goods: the commission and the desk fee live at GST-only 5%, while the lawn signs, lockboxes, and glossy feature sheets each carry the province’s unrecoverable 7%. This Xero chart of accounts splits the practice along that line so the true cost of winning a listing is always a report away.

Commissions: taxable, always

Commission income defaults to the custom GST on Sales (5%) rate. The home may change hands exempt; the service of selling it never does, and commission volumes carry new agents past the registration threshold quickly. Referral fees between registered practices are taxable services too, visible on their own line rather than netted into deal proceeds. Being registered is also what makes the rest of this chart’s credits real.

The goods-versus-services split, realtor edition

• Listing and portal fees: GST-only; MLS, board dues, and franchise portals are services.
• Photography, staging and floor plans: GST-only default for the services, with the 12% alternative for physical staging goods and printed materials.
• Signage and lockboxes: the 12% pair; physical goods carry PST as cost, which belongs in the cost-per-listing math.
• Brokerage desk fees: GST-only services, fully creditable, material, and contractual.
• Meals and entertainment: GST-only (restaurant food is PST-exempt in BC) at the federal half-credit.

The vehicle, split as always, with a BC twist

Motor vehicle expenses holds actual costs: fuel at GST-only (motor fuel taxes are their own regime, not PST), repairs at the 12% pair because services to goods carry PST in BC, insurance exempt. The passenger-vehicle ITC cap and personal-use apportionment ride in the note. Vehicle allowance claims codes Out of Scope, allowances being compensation rather than supplies, with the kilometre log as its load-bearing document.

Setup and season

1. Create the five custom rates in Xero (Tax menu, Tax settings, Tax rates); the practice’s income side cannot code without the 5% rates.
2. Import via Accounting, Chart of accounts, Import, and confirm the preview shows 5s on services and 12s on goods.
3. Post brokerage statements in components: splits to income, desk fees to their account, each at its treatment.
4. Tag staging, photography, and signage bills with the listing address; cost-per-listing is the number that disciplines the next pitch.
5. Park the GST share of each commission deposit in savings the day it lands; lumpy income files smoothly only when the tax is pre-separated.
6. Review the signage and print lines quarterly for stray 5% codes; goods miscoded as services understate listing costs.

Team growth keeps the same shape: contracted coordinators bill as services at 5% (or bare, as small suppliers), payroll assistants run out of scope, and buyer’s agents on the team invoice taxable splits like any registered practice.

Open houses and closings generate their own little goods economy: flowers, snacks, closing gifts, branded swag. All of it is goods at the 12% pair, the 7% part of the cost of doing business in person, and client gifts sidestep the meals limitation only when they are genuinely gifts rather than entertainment consumed together. A modest client-gifts line inside marketing keeps the spend visible, budgeted, and correctly taxed rather than scattered through office supplies.

The receipts of this trade are earned kerbside and lost in consoles. Hubdoc captures them from a phone first. ExpenseFlow reads each receipt and bill, applies the services-at-5, goods-at-12 split and the allowance and meals rules this chart encodes, and posts coded entries into Xero while the market is still hot. Dext keeps the boards and portals consistent through supplier rules.

The QuickBooks rendering is at BC real estate chart of accounts for QuickBooks; the rates are documented in the BC Xero tax rates reference.