Share your operating/accounting/tracking software. Lets find something better!

[Justin R.]

For the most part, all of the real estate based operating systems are geared toward property managers, NOT investors. This includes metrics typically only the manager would need to focus on (work orders, billing, venders, tenant screening, tenant communication, maintenance management, etc.)

I tried Stessa in years past, but it wasn't able to grow with me, and it was not a system my bookkeeper and accountant were familiar with. I was left with (and still use) Quickbooks Online. QBO is nice because any accountant or bookkeeper should be extremely familiar, plus it automatically pulls bank accounts, which saves some time. 

QBO has its own issues as well. Quckbooks was created for a much bigger animal than RE investors. Yes we can use use by simply creating "classes" for each property, and categorize expenses. It is cumbersome though, and confusing when getting beyond common data entries.  Not to mentioned the price is between $50-100 a month per "business" (or entity) which can add up quickly. 

What are you using? Can it be setup to track various KPI's? Can you easily see your occupancy/vacancy rate at any moment? Can you quickly see performance data or a single property, region, or total portfolio? Does it show trends?

If this system is not out there, I would imagine there would be strong demand for the first person to create a operating system solely for real estate investors.

Cheers!

[Nelisa Lee]

If I knew how to design a software, I would be all over this! I struggled with this in the beginning a lot because I don't self-manage any of our properties so a lot of things that these other softwares provide were overkill and provided way more than I needed. I use Quickbooks for all accounting and to get more of the KPI data that you're looking for like vacancy, we use Stessa. It's not ideal working in multiple systems but it's the most cost effective solution we have found. We just have a Virtual Assistant that keeps it all up to date for us.