Why Assignment Fees and EMDs Need Their Own Tracking Category
Money in a wholesale business moves in unusual shapes compared to a typical small business. An EMD goes out before a deal is even locked. An assignment fee comes in as one lump payment. Contractor payments show up on rehab-adjacent deals even though the wholesaler never holds title on the property.
Generic income-and-expense bookkeeping, one register with no per-deal tagging, makes it genuinely hard to know which deal actually made money once title company fees, EMD refunds, and contractor payments are all mixed into the same undifferentiated feed. The fix is not more bookkeeping discipline, it is a tool that can tag transactions to a specific deal.
QuickBooks Online’s Current Tiers
| Tier | Price | What it adds |
|---|---|---|
| Simple Start | $35/month | Basic invoicing and expense tracking |
| Essentials | $65/month | Bill management |
| Plus | $99/month | Project tracking and inventory |
| Advanced | $235/month | Advanced reporting |
The Plus tier’s project tracking is the one that matters most for a wholesaler: it lets a specific deal’s EMD, assignment fee, title fees, and any contractor payment get grouped and reported on as a single project rather than scattered across the general ledger. Advanced’s reporting depth becomes worth the jump once a growing team needs cross-deal reporting Plus cannot produce on its own.
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Book a Real Estate Fit CallWave: The Free Alternative for a Simpler Operation
Wave’s Starter tier is commonly reported as free, covering unlimited invoices, bills, and bookkeeping records, positioned for an operation whose bookkeeping needs start and end with sending invoices and categorizing expenses. Its $19-a-month Pro tier reportedly adds bank-transaction tracking, receipt capture, and payment reminders on top of Starter. These figures come from independent pricing-comparison coverage rather than a direct, current fetch of Wave’s own pricing page, so confirm them on wave.com before budgeting around them.
Wave is not free once payment processing or payroll enters the picture. Processing reportedly runs 2.9% plus $0.60 a transaction, and payroll pricing is $40 a month base plus $6 an employee, both separate from the $0 or $19 subscription tier. A wholesaler collecting an EMD or assignment fee by card through Wave is paying that processing fee on top of whatever subscription tier they are on.
A Solo Wholesaler vs. a Small Team: Which Tier Fits
A solo wholesaler closing 2 deals a month with straightforward invoicing can likely run on Wave’s free Starter tier plus its processing fee when a payment is collected by card. Collecting a $5,000 assignment fee by card through Wave costs roughly $145.60 in processing, $5,000 times 2.9% plus the flat $0.60, on top of the $0 subscription.
A team of 3 tracking several simultaneous deals, each with its own EMD, contractor payments, and closing costs, outgrows that setup fast. QuickBooks Plus at $99 a month, with its project-level tracking, is the tier built for exactly that case; Advanced at $235 a month becomes worth it once the team also needs cross-deal reporting Plus cannot produce.
Matching Software to What You Are Tracking
- List every distinct money movement a typical deal involves: EMD out, assignment fee in, title and closing fees, any contractor payment, then decide whether you need per-deal project tracking or just a clean register.
- If invoicing and basic bookkeeping cover it, start with Wave’s free Starter tier before paying for anything.
- If you need to see one deal’s full P&L, EMD, fee, and any contractor cost together, move to QuickBooks Plus for its project tracking rather than trying to force Wave to do it.
- Factor in Wave’s 2.9% plus $0.60 processing fee and $40-plus-$6-per-employee payroll pricing before assuming the free tier stays free.
- Reassess at Advanced’s $235-a-month tier only once a growing team genuinely needs the deeper reporting layer, not before.
What this means for you
- QuickBooks Online runs $35 a month for Simple Start up to $235 a month for Advanced; Plus, at $99 a month, is the tier that adds per-deal project tracking.
- Wave’s Starter tier is commonly reported as free for invoicing and bookkeeping, but processing fees, 2.9% plus $0.60 a transaction, and payroll pricing, $40 plus $6 an employee, apply on top once those features are used.
- Collecting a $5,000 assignment fee by card through Wave costs roughly $145.60 in processing fees alone, a real cost worth weighing against a bank transfer or a paid QuickBooks tier.
Sources
The external data in this guide draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- NerdWallet, "QuickBooks Pricing 2026: How Much Does QuickBooks Cost?"
- Zapier, "Wave vs. QuickBooks: Which Is Best?"