Bookkeeping - what's your approach?

[Mark Yuschak]

As we acquire more and more (mostly buy and holds, but also some rehabs for a quick flip) it's becoming more and more of a hassle to keep the books.

I am yet to find an adequate piece of bookkeeping software which really lends itself to real estate investing. Quickbooks claims to be REI friendly, but it simply isn't. It's written on the premise of being service oriented with buying goods, selling the goods and or a service, then invoicing. I'm having a heck of a time forcing my transactions to fit that model.

At this point, I think I'd be better off with maintaining my old school way of just doing it all manually...but that's at the risk of missing something as our volume increases. Quite honestly, I'm very detailed with my manual bookkeeping and simply maintaining an accurate history is partially holding me back from doing more REI.

What methods do you employ?

[Mark Yuschak]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I haven't given QB a fair shot so far...

To take my question to the next level... What do you for rehabs, specifically? Do you simply log all the receipts for Home Depot, contractors, etc.? Then, how about the initial cost of the property? What is that classified as? Then, what about loans and loan payments? And...when resell on land contract, what is that considered? It's not rent, that's for sure. QB seems too shallow when it comes to handling loans.