Marketing money and commission money are two of the easiest things to lose track of in a busy sales office. A vendor agrees to a marketing package, the portal and print invoices arrive over the following weeks, the property sells, and then someone has to work out what was spent, what was recovered and how the commission splits across the agents involved. Done in a spreadsheet, it is slow and easy to get wrong.
iDashboard keeps advertising budgets, expenditure, vendor deposits and commission calculations against the property itself, so the numbers live where the campaign lives. Here is a practical way to set it up and keep it tidy.
Start with the budget, not the invoices
When a vendor signs off on a marketing spend, record the agreed advertising budget against the listing straight away. It takes a minute and it becomes the reference point for everything that follows.
With the budget recorded first, every expense that comes in afterwards has something to be measured against. Anyone in the office can open the property and see what was agreed rather than digging through the authority or an email thread.
Record expenditure as it happens
Marketing costs rarely arrive in one neat bundle. Portal upgrades, photography, floor plans, signboards, window cards and brochures all land at different times and often from different suppliers.
The habit worth building is simple: enter each cost against the property as it is incurred, not at the end of the campaign. A short weekly pass through new invoices is far quicker than reconstructing a campaign months later, and it keeps the property’s expense record accurate for whoever needs it next.
If the Expenses tab is not showing on your properties, the feature may not be switched on for your agency — a quick call to support will sort it out.
Track vendor deposits against what was spent
Where a vendor has paid for their marketing up front, record the deposit as well. Holding the agreed budget, the deposit and the actual expenditure in the same place makes it obvious whether a campaign is tracking under, on or over — and whether there is anything to refund or recover at the end.
This matters most at the point of sale, when everyone wants an answer quickly and nobody wants to go looking for it.
Set commission structures up once
Commission is where agencies differ most. Some split evenly between the listing and selling agent, some weight it toward the lister, some carve out a share for the principal or a referring agent, and plenty of offices run different arrangements for different people.
iDashboard handles commission tracking, splitting and calculations however your office shares it. The work is in defining the arrangement properly the first time — after that, the calculation happens against the sale rather than in someone’s head or a spreadsheet formula that only one person understands.
It is worth reviewing your splits when a new agent joins, when an arrangement changes, or at the start of a financial year, so the figures being calculated are the current ones.
Use office reporting to see the whole picture
Once budgets, expenses and commissions are captured consistently, office reporting turns them into something useful. You can pull reports on the data your agency actually values — what is being spent on marketing, what is being recovered, and how commission is tracking across agents and across the office.
That is the real payoff of good data entry habits. Reporting is only ever as good as what went in, which is why the small weekly effort of recording costs as they arrive is worth protecting.
A simple weekly routine
- Record the agreed advertising budget when the authority is signed
- Enter marketing invoices against the property each week as they arrive
- Record vendor deposits and check them against actual spend
- Confirm commission splits before a sale is finalised, not after
- Run your office reports monthly to spot campaigns tracking over budget
Why it is worth the effort
Agencies that keep marketing and commission data in the CRM spend less time reconstructing history and answering “what did we spend on this one?”. Vendors get clear answers about their marketing spend. Agents get clarity on what they have earned. Administrators stop chasing invoices across inboxes.
None of it requires a new system — just consistent use of the tools already sitting against each property in your real estate CRM.
If you would like help setting up expenses, budgets or commission structures for your office, our support team is available to all iDashboard users at no extra cost. Give us a call on 1800 432 742 or get in touch through idashboard.com.au.
