GCI vs Company Dollar: How to Book Commissions, Splits and Caps

GCI, or gross commission income, is the full commission your brokerage earns on its side of each deal. Company dollar is what's left after the agent's split and, at most brokerages, any outgoing referral fee. Record both: the full commission as revenue, the agent's share as a cost, and company dollar as the line in between, so your P&L shows what the brokerage produced and what it actually kept.

GCI and company dollar, defined

GCI is the commission paid to your brokerage at closing for your side of the transaction. If the closing agent pays the other brokerage directly, which is common, GCI is simply the check you receive. It's the number that measures production: how much business your agents brought in.

Company dollar is GCI minus what you pay out of it to the agent. Most brokerages also take out outgoing referral fees, and franchised offices often take out the royalty too. Definitions vary from firm to firm, so pick one, write it down and use it every month. A company dollar number that changes definition halfway through the year can't be compared to anything.

Fee income sits next to company dollar, not inside it. Desk fees, technology fees, transaction fees and E&O charges are money your agents pay you, and on cap and fee-based models they can be a big share of what the brokerage keeps. Track them as their own income lines so you can see how much of the business runs on splits and how much runs on fees.

Why brokerage books usually get this wrong

The bank account only shows cash moving. A $12,000 commission check lands in operating, and a few days later $8,100 goes out to the agent. If the deposit gets coded as income and the payout as a generic expense, or worse as a transfer or owner draw, the P&L shows a pile of revenue and a pile of cost with nothing tying them together.

From there you can't answer the questions that matter: what did the brokerage keep on that deal, which agents make you money, and how much of your income is fees. Your 1099 totals also become a guess, because the agent payouts are scattered across accounts and some of them had fees netted out.

A worked example

Say one of your agents closes a sale and your side of the commission is $12,000. The agent is on a 70/30 split, and you charge a $300 transaction fee that comes out of their check.

The books should show all of it: $12,000 of revenue, $8,400 of agent commission, $3,600 of company dollar and $300 of fee income. The $3,900 that stays in the bank is just the company dollar plus the fee. If you only record the $8,100 payout as an expense, your company dollar looks like $3,900, your fee income looks like zero and the agent's commission total is understated by $300.

How caps change the math

On a cap model, the agent pays the brokerage its split until they've paid a set amount of company dollar for the year. After that, they keep 100% of the commission and pay a flat transaction fee instead. Many brokerages run the cap year from each agent's anniversary date rather than January 1, so the cap tracker and the calendar year rarely line up.

Say an agent on an 80/20 split has a $20,000 cap and has already paid $19,000 toward it. Their next deal brings in $10,000 of GCI. The brokerage's 20% would be $2,000, but only $1,000 is left before the cap, so company dollar on that deal is $1,000 and the agent's commission is $9,000. On every deal after that, company dollar is zero and the brokerage earns only the transaction fee.

That's why the cap tracker has to agree with the books. If your brokerage software thinks the agent has capped and your books don't, or the other way round, someone gets overpaid. We check that the company dollar recorded for each agent matches the cap progress in your brokerage software, every month.

How to set up the chart of accounts

A few accounts do most of the work. We usually set agent commissions up as cost of sales, so the gross profit line in QuickBooks Online is your company dollar. Our chart of accounts guide covers the general structure.

• Gross Commission Income, by office or team with classes or locations if you have more than one.
• Agent Commissions (cost of sales), the agent's full share before any fees come out.
• Referral Fees Paid (cost of sales), so outgoing referrals don't hide inside commissions.
• Agent Fee Income, with separate lines for desk, technology, transaction and E&O fees.
• Referral Fee Income, for referrals other brokerages pay you.
• Agent fees receivable, for fees you've billed and haven't collected yet.
• Escrow bank account and a matching earnest money held liability, where your brokerage holds deposits at all.

Recording each closing, step by step

1. Start from the paperwork. Pull the settlement statement and the commission disbursement authorization (CDA) or commission statement from your brokerage software, such as brokerWOLF or Brokermint.
2. Record the full commission received as GCI, tagged to the agent and the office.
3. Record any outgoing referral fee as its own line, at the amount on the CDA.
4. Record the agent's split at the gross amount, before fees come out.
5. Record fees taken from the check. A transaction fee charged on this deal is fee income. A desk fee you already billed last month pays down that agent's balance in fees receivable instead, so it isn't counted twice.
6. Match the payout to the closing. The agent's net payment should equal their split minus the fees on the CDA, to the dollar.
7. Update cap progress and check it against your brokerage software.

Mistakes we see most often

• Booking only the net. Recording company dollar as revenue hides total production and makes agent payment totals hard to rebuild.
• Netting fees against commissions with no record. The fee income disappears, and nobody can say which agents still owe you.
• Counting earnest money as income. It belongs to the transaction until closing. Keep it in its own account and reconcile it monthly with a three-way trust reconciliation. Rules vary by state, including whether brokerages hold earnest money at all.
• Counting the other brokerage's side as GCI. If your brokerage ever receives the full commission and pays the cooperating brokerage, their share passes through. It isn't your production.
• Booking pending deals. A deal under contract isn't revenue. GCI is recorded when the deal closes and the commission is earned.
• Mixing in your own production. If you sell too, keep your own deals visible. How you pay yourself from them is a question for your CPA.

What to look at every month

Once the books separate GCI, commissions and fees, a monthly review takes minutes. Look at GCI and company dollar by office and by agent, company dollar as a share of GCI (in the example above, $3,600 of $12,000 is 30%), fee income by type, agent fee balances and who's past due, which agents are close to capping, and whether the escrow account reconciled.

At year end, your CPA gets a P&L with GCI, agent commissions and company dollar on separate lines, reconciled bank and escrow accounts, and payment totals for every agent. We keep both the gross commission and the fees deducted for each agent, so whichever number your CPA wants on the 1099s is easy to pull. The IRS page for Form 1099-NEC has the current form and instructions.

How we handle it

Our bookkeeping for real estate brokerages works from your brokerage software's closing, split and payout reports and your bank feeds, in QuickBooks Online. Every commission check is recorded at gross, every payout is matched to a closing, and your P&L shows company dollar on its own line every month. It sits under our wider real estate bookkeeping for agents, investors and property managers.

If your books are behind, we rebuild them month by month from your bank statements and closing reports before moving to monthly work. Plans start at $299 a month; any setup or catch-up fee is quoted up front. If you'd like to see what that looks like for your firm, start with our brokerage bookkeeping page.

Common questions

What is company dollar in real estate?

Company dollar is the part of a commission the brokerage keeps after paying the agent's split. Most brokerages also subtract outgoing referral fees, and franchised offices often subtract the royalty. It's the money that pays rent, staff, software and marketing, so it's the number to watch, not GCI.

Should a brokerage record GCI or company dollar as revenue?

We record the full commission as revenue and the agent's share as cost of sales, so the P&L shows GCI, commissions and company dollar on separate lines. Recording only the net hides your production and your agent payment totals. Your CPA decides how revenue is presented on the tax return.

How do you keep agent caps straight in the books?

Your brokerage software tracks cap progress. We make sure the company dollar recorded for each agent in QuickBooks matches it every month, so an agent isn't paid at 100% before they've actually capped, or held at their split after they have. See our brokerage bookkeeping page for the rest of the monthly routine.

Do fees taken out of an agent's commission change their 1099?

Which amount goes on an agent's 1099 is your CPA's call. We record each agent's full commission and every fee deducted from it as separate lines, so either number is easy to pull in January. For payments made in 2026 and later, the 1099-NEC threshold is $2,000, up from $600.