Quickbooks or other easy accounting software?

Question

Hi. Could someone give me their experience with Quickbooks, Quicken, or any other accounting software? My rental property is small and doesn't generate too much income, but I have expenses that I need organized. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Dave Toelkes · Answer

I have been using Quicken Rental Property Manager for multiple properties for years.  It has everything I need in a rental property accounting system and the direct interface to TurboTax makes tax reporting easier.

Adrienne Henley · Answer

Hi @Gigi H.

You should check out the BP marketplace. There are a few alternatives that I think you'd really like. You can also send me a message and I'd be happy to chat about a few other tech options I think you'd enjoy:)

Damian LoBasso · Answer

@William F., I'm sorry if I created confusion with the comment.  I was merely stating that institutionalizing one's business is the right approach to take, at whatever stage.  Quickbooks Online is sufficient software for those in the early stages of their portfolio development.  Those with thousands of properties either maintain an internal finance team/controller/CFO, or utilize much more integrated accounting software, such as options provided by SAP or Acumatica.

Happy to chat about it more if you have any specific questions!

Damian LoBasso · Answer

Hi @Gigi H.!

If your property isn't that complicated, you might not even have to spend the $30-50/month on software, and you can just use Excel.

If you want a little more of a robust experience however (cloud computing, ability to scan receipts from the app), Quickbooks Online is the way to go.  It's relatively cheap and straightforward to use, and will certainly help institutionalize your property.  Even though you only have one property, you still want to treat it the same way the big players with thousands of units do.  That way, when you expand, all of the pieces are already in place.

Don't hesitate to reach out with any questions!

Jeff B. · Answer

Have no idea to what you are referring.  The setup wizard leads you by QnA to the correct solution.  Whatever other choice you might be tempted to use (including Excel), the basic information is still necessary and getting it wrong is really messy with Excel - - QB, you just start over.

[for the record, I am not associated one iota with QB]

Jeff B. · Answer

I've been a QB user for years and would like to discuss SCALLING (continual addition of new properties and tenants).

First consider just a single MFU with say four tenants.  Simple, collect rents, pay expenses, print a PnL and your ready for April 15th.

Now buy another four-plex.  First choices is to just continue, but quickly you will discover that identifying PnL/property is impossible - - your still set for April 15th, but can't monitor each property for itself nor compare to any other.

EXCEL may help, but you're going to either add extra columns or rows for every property and tenant and THEN need to sort that stuff appropriately to get usable printouts. (can you sort tables and get subtotals for selected rows&columns?)

QB makes this all trivial - - add a CLASS for each property (not tenants) using something like just the Street Name and then enforce that all data entry requires a Class.  Monitoring, invoicing, expenses, PnL are all viewable by class and the data entry looks always the same - - no scrolling about to find JoeDoe @ Elm St.

Now say your growing by leaps-n-bounds and have TEN properties - - OMG, EXCEL becomes untenable IMO while QB is still the same, simple presentation as it was on day one.  If accounting isn't your bag (not mine either), you can always get an intro class for QB.

Note:  I bought the desktop version in 2009 and still use that one copy.  Imagine the cost by now for $10/month!

Natalie Kolodij · Answer

You can totally utilize a spreadsheet for this and it should be fine. I have clients with 10 rentals still doing in in an excel workbook.

Quickbooks is most common accounting software we come across at CPA firms, so it saves time on familiarity. It would offer you the benefit of having current reports and feed-back regarding your rental (s) as you grow.

If you had an accountant set up the quickbooks and give you a crash course- you'd know it was all set up correctly and that you could rely on the numbers. A large number of small businesses/landlords who I see use quickbooks aren't using it correctly - which isn't giving them accurate numbers...and literally loses it's benefit above using just a spreadsheet.

I would run away from quicken.

Franklin Romine · Answer

Get Betty the bookkeeper and take ourselves out of the equation.  Who really wants to be punching #'s in a software?

Frank

Sean Cole · Answer

I use Xero for my businesses and have really appreciated how easy it is to use.

Quickbooks or other easy accounting software?

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