Tuesday Tip: Ditch the Spreadsheets

[Matthew Cervoni]

This week's Tuesday Tip is for anyone still doing their bookkeeping on a Google Sheet or Excel file. Bookkeeping is an essential function to any real estate investor's business, the reason being is that when done right they can save you money on taxes and increase your profitability. 

Because this is such a high impact function, storing all of this data in a spreadsheet is too inefficient. It is time consuming, usually is missing some data, and lacks reporting power. Using software like Quickbooks Online, Xero, Stessa (which is free), or a professional bookkeeper who provides these applications for you, you'll be able to pull much more value out of your financial data. 

In fact, last month at my local meetup an investor in large multifamily properties spoke about how a good trailing 12 months Profit & Loss statement, Rent Roll, and Balance Sheet with CapEx details helped boost the value of his property when he went to sell.

The best way to achieve your marketing goals is to understand the data behind what is working and what is not. When you wear a blue shirt do you sell more than when you wear red? What common questions do your clients ask? Just like in marketing, to achieve our financial goals we need to understand the data... aka our books. 

A couple weeks ago we talked about "being like the best" and I can assure you that the best investors and their advisors are using bookkeeping data to make meaningful decisions that will help achieve the investors goals.