Summary: At our most recent Aprio-hosted webinar, senior leaders from Aprio and REdirect Consulting came together to explore how innovations in AI and automation are transforming the real estate accounting industry and what forward-thinking firms are doing to get ahead of the game.
The real estate industry is at an inflection point. Mounting pressure from talent shortages, fragmented technology ecosystems, and rising investor expectations are forcing executives to fundamentally rethink how their accounting and back-office operations are structured.
In the latest installment of our real estate webcast series, Aprio teamed up with REdirect Consulting to explore how advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and strategic outsourcing are reshaping real estate accounting practices.
Here is a recap of our discussion and some key steps real estate accountants can take to give their firms a competitive edge in this new environment.
A Perfect Storm of Pressure
There are several converging forces driving the urgency for change in the broader accounting industry. First, the talent pipeline into accounting has been narrowing for years: the AICPA estimates that 75% of licensed CPAs are at or near retirement age, while the number of new CPA exam candidates has dropped 30% over the past decade. As a result, the profession is facing simultaneous mass exits and shrinking inflows, leaving firms competing for a smaller pool of qualified professionals.
At the same time, technology has made the role of the modern accountant significantly more complex. Historically, individual IT professionals once managed straightforward core accounting systems; today, new tech platforms encompass dozens of integrated modules, including investment accounting, investor portals, online leasing, vendor platforms, advanced reporting tools, and more. It has become increasingly difficult for real estate companies to find and retain professionals who can navigate this full ecosystem.
Owner and investor expectations are compounding these challenges. As AI-enabled tools become standard across the industry, stakeholders now expect faster, more accurate reporting and greater transparency. The notion that high-quality financials must be inherently time‑consuming is no longer accepted. Finance departments that fail to adapt risk losing credibility with owners and investors.
What Modern Real Estate Accounting Actually Looks Like
Leading real estate accounting professionals are distinguishing themselves by moving away from manual, error-prone processes toward integrated, automated workflows. There are several pain points that signal a firm is ready to modernize its accounting workflows:
- Heavy reliance on manual data entry and reconciliation
- Difficulty assembling accurate financial reports on deadline
- Recurring reclassifications and journal entry corrections
- Technology infrastructure that simply cannot scale with portfolio growth
Modernization is not just about adopting new tools. It requires a disciplined look at how systems are configured, how processes actually work, and whether the data coming out of those systems can be trusted. When an ERP is poorly configured, a company may generate reports that look complete but quietly undermine executive decision‑making. In many cases, teams end up manually manipulating spreadsheets outside the system just to produce usable financials, a clear sign that the ERP is not optimized. System changes made without proper validation can compound the problem, introducing new errors instead of eliminating old ones. Companies that get this right treat technology as an ongoing operating responsibility, not a one‑time project, much like maintaining a building. Construction may end, but the work of upkeep, tuning, and oversight never does.
AI and Automation: From Experimentation to Execution
Over the past decade, real estate accounting has steadily become more technology‑driven, with companies investing in cloud platforms, integrations, and workflow automation to support scale and reporting demands. That evolution has laid the groundwork for the next phase of modernization. Today, AI‑enabled tools are beginning to build on this foundation, offering new ways to reduce manual effort, improve accuracy, and streamline core accounting processes.
In general, AI capabilities fall into three tiers:
- Conversational AI tools: The large language models (LLMs) most professionals now interact with daily are well-suited for summarizing documents, drafting communications, and surfacing insights from existing data.
- Integrated AI platforms: These AI workflow tools enable cross-system integrations and process automation with relatively low technical overhead.
- Agentic AI: These tools are highly sophisticated and can execute complex, end-to-end workflows. They pull data from multiple sources, run matching procedures, and load results directly into property management systems without requiring human intervention at each step.
Firms that are using AI are already seeing measurable time savings. Take bank reconciliation automation, for example: historically, bank reconciliation was one of the most labor-intensive tasks for real estate accountants, due to high volumes of property-level accounts and numerous tenant transactions. Today, many companies use AI‑enabled tools to automate bank reconciliation, pulling transaction data, applying matching logic, and preparing entries for review and posting.
Furthermore, these new tools have helped firms streamline daily bank-to-book automations, easily identifying new transactions and creating unposted entries for review. In some cases, real estate accountants have adopted document-understanding technology that extracts key data from semi-structured invoices and loads it directly into their accounting systems. For companies or operators that manage large real estate portfolios, these are not simply marginal improvements; they are structural shifts in how their teams complete work on time and within budget.
Today’s leading property management platforms are also racing to embed native AI capabilities into their tools. Many AI-based property management tools can handle everything from conversational data querying to automated work order triage to intelligent user support. Companies that stay closely connected to their platform vendors’ AI and tech roadmaps will be better positioned to capture these benefits without additional integration complexity.
Outsourcing as a Strategic Lever, Not a Last Resort
Historically, outsourced accounting was often viewed primarily as a cost‑containment measure. That perspective has changed. As accounting operations have become more technology‑enabled and less dependent on physical proximity, companies are increasingly using outsourcing to access specialized expertise and scalable capacity without having to build, manage, or maintain those capabilities internally.
- Full outsourcing involves transferring day‑to‑day accounting execution to an external partner, while management decisions and oversight remain with company leadership.
- Functional outsourcing is more targeted and focuses on specific activities such as accounts payable, lease administration, or bank reconciliations.
- Co‑sourcing sits between these two models and is often the most flexible approach. In a co‑sourced arrangement, an external partner performs defined accounting tasks while working closely with the internal team, with work reviewed, approved, or jointly managed by company leadership
No single approach is universally superior. The right mix of full outsourcing, functional outsourcing, or co‑sourcing depends on a company’s size, operating complexity, growth plans, and how leadership prefers to balance execution with internal oversight and control.
It’s also important to distinguish between a true accounting partner and a low‑cost bookkeeping provider. Lower pricing can be appealing, but it often comes with tradeoffs that surface over time, including rework, delays, added internal oversight, and risk tied to inaccurate or inconsistent reporting. By contrast, a strong outsourcing partner brings experienced professionals, real estate‑specific knowledge, and dependable execution. The right partner can help identify process gaps, anticipate issues, and operate as a natural extension of the internal team.
Getting Started: A Practical Framework
For real estate leaders ready to move from awareness to action, progress does not require a wholesale transformation overnight. The starting point is a clear, honest assessment of where the accounting function is creating friction today, including whether the underlying technology infrastructure is properly supporting reporting, controls, and scale. With that perspective, companies can evaluate whether internal teams have the capacity and experience to close those gaps or whether outside support would accelerate progress. That clarity allows leadership to move forward with intent rather than reaction.
For companies ready to begin using AI in a practical way, the most effective path forward is deliberate and phased. That typically starts with clarifying governance and guardrails, identifying where automation can realistically reduce manual effort, and testing targeted use cases before expanding more broadly. The organizations that make real progress treat AI not as a standalone initiative, but as part of the operating model, with clear ownership, disciplined change management, and ongoing refinement over time.
Final thoughts
The companies that will lead the next cycle in real estate are building their operational foundations now. Modern technology, intelligent automation, and strategic partnerships are not the future state of the industry; these tools are available today, and the window for proactive investment is open. The question is whether your organization will move through it.
Aprio can provide a brief health check to give you valuable insight into your people, process, and technology infrastructure, along with a practical path forward to most efficiently align with leading industry practices. If you are interested in pursuing a health check, contact Jon Klausa, Partner, Client Accounting Services, at [email protected].
