Best Baselane Tutorials?

Question

Hey and Hi! I am getting started on my Baselane account and looking for tutorials. Specifically, I am unclear what the best way is to organize my subaccount; Do I open a new account per property? or put all my properties in one account and then my subaccounts are for taxes, reserves, profit? Are there escrow accounts to hold deposits?

I've spent some time on YouTube and while I appreciate BL has hosted other RE education, their playlist is really wanting in the areas that are most directly related to their services. And the ones that affiliate videos seem to be a commercial for BL, not tutorials.

Would love your best, hot tips for setting up and making the most of your Baselane account!

Mike Levene · Answer

Hi Amelia, I'm excited to hear that you are starting to use Baselane. I've been using it for a while now and it has so many great features, many of which you are touching on with your questions. My suggestion is the following:If all of your properties are in separate LLCs, under the Baselane Banking tab on the left, create an Account for each Entity you have. This will help separate your finances, but when you do reporting on the Analytics & Reporting tab on the left, you can still see all of your properties together in one place. When you create any type of transaction (income or expense) you can choose what category it is, and what property it is for. This is what organizes your transactions and allows you to clearly see what your income and expenses are for each property, or as a whole portfolio.For each Entity, you would then create an Account. Once you have an entity, click the name and inside that account, you can do all of your sub accounts for that specific property. For example, I like to set up the following accounts for a property:1. Main Account - Checking account to set up transfers or draw money from for mortgage, insurance, taxes, etc. and I get a Baselane debit card (physical and virtual)2. Rent Collection - Savings account, as soon as I collect rent, I like to put it in a savings account to start earning interest. I then set up automatic transfers within Baselane to disperse the money to the correct accounts. Ex: On day 25, I have an automatic transfer to my main account for the exact amount for my mortgage payment, but I earned interest on the rent for the first 25 days of the month.3. Utilities - Checking account I use to draw from for utility payments. I have automatic transfers from my rent collection account to this account for my estimated monthly utility costs. Essentially, I put myself on a budget plan where I take the annual cost of utilities, divide by 12, and transfer that amount +10% every month into the utilities account. Every so often I will rebalance the account if it grows too much.4. Reserves: Savings account that I place reserves for maintenance, Capex, vacancy, etc. Everyone has their own preference on how much reserves to keep. Once I hit my reserves goal, I transfer the additional money to a separate "War Chest". If I draw from the reserves, I start to pay back into immediately to bring it up to my golden number.5. Security Deposits / Escrow: If you would like to use Baselane for an escrow account, you can simply open another sub account that is separate from your day-to-day activities. In some states however, you need to open the escrow account in the tenants name and unfortunately that is not possible at the moment. Here is Baselane's article related to state requirements for security deposits: Baselane Security DepositsOverall, there is so much you can do with the Baselane banking features. Although there are best practices, everyone prefers to set it up with their own unique flavor. If you want to be more hands on with it, I recommend something similar to the above. If you want to simplify it because you have too many properties to maintain, simply create a main checking account and a security deposit account for each property or Entity. If you are migrating from another platform, to help bridge the time in-between, you can also set up automatic transfers directly to and from Baselane to make sure everything is in the right place during the temporary transition.This is only the tip of the iceberg of what Baselane can do. If you have any questions or want me to do a walkthrough with you, send me a DM and we can set something up.