(Stop) Chasing Payments:

Managing agent billing is one of the most tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone parts of running a real estate brokerage. Too many offices rely on a messy mix of spreadsheets, disconnected tools, and “hope they remember” payment collection tactics.

This has a real cost: missed revenue, delayed cash flow, and staff spending hours every month chasing agents around. And yet, we’ve seen little to no innovation or automation to give brokers more tools to address the issue.

At RealDesk, we knew there had to be a better way — so we built it.

The Problem: Why Agent Billing is a Mess

1. Billing Without Integration = Chaos

Most offices don’t have a platform that links agent billing with their accounting or payment systems. That means tracking recurring fees, MLS charges, and listing expenses often falls to spreadsheets — which are slow, error-prone, and can’t scale.

2. Expenses Are Complex and Constantly Changing

Agents come and go. Listing fees fluctuate. Board dues change every year. Admins are constantly re-keying and adjusting amounts, which makes it difficult to stay current, let alone get ahead.

3. Statements Are a Manual Nightmare

Even if you want to send agents monthly statements, many platforms make it painfully manual. Go to the agent’s account. Download each PDF. Save to a folder on your desktop. Create a separate email for each agent. Find the statement and attach to the email. Repeat for every agent. In a mid-sized office, that could be a full day of work — every month!

4. Payment Recovery Is Inconsistent and Slow

Ideally, you'd recover agent expenses primarily through deal payouts. But most agents do 2 deals per year or fewer, which means receivables sit unpaid for months. Worse, if an agent leaves the brokerage with unpaid expenses, that money is almost surely gone.

You can try to collect payments via cheque or e-transfer, but that depends on the agent remembering, and staff manually tracking who paid and who didn’t. With everyone short on time, there’s only so much effort they can devote to going after long-overdue billings.

The Solution: RealDesk Eliminates Aged Receivables

RealDesk takes agent billing out of spreadsheets and into an intelligent, automated workflow — giving brokerages full visibility, full control, and faster access to ALL of their money. Here's how:

1. Effortless Recurring Billing

Create recurring fees (monthly, quarterly, annual) and apply them to all or specific agents with just a few clicks. New agents are automatically added. Terminated agents are automatically removed (though their existing balances don’t go away).

2. Cards on File

You can securely store credit card or debit info for each agent, making it easy to collect payments directly without waiting for a deal to close. Agents and staff receive automated notifications when credit cards are set to expire, or get declined.

3. Automated Statements

Statements are generated and emailed to agents automatically on whatever schedule you choose. No manual PDFs. No attachments. Just done.

4. Auto-Recovery

Choose your collection cadence (daily, biweekly, monthly), and RealDesk will automatically recover outstanding fees using the card on file.

You can even link expense recovery to statement delivery: for example, send out statements on the 15th of each month, and recover payments automatically two days later.

5. Full A/R Reporting

RealDesk provides comprehensive A/R reports by agent, by aging bucket, and by income account — giving you real-time visibility into what’s outstanding, what’s recovered, and what’s at risk.

6. Flexible Controls

Need to override an expense, create a partial payment, or issue a credit for a specific agent? No problem. You can adjust, discount, or defer charges as needed, without breaking your whole workflow.

The Bottom Line: More Cash, Less Hassle

When brokerages switch to RealDesk, A/R doesn’t just get easier, it disappears. By automating expense creation, recovery, and reporting, offices can finally stop chasing agents for money, and start using that additional revenue to grow.

Less manual admin. Fewer write-offs. Faster cash flow. That’s real bottom-line impact.