Convert from QuickBooks to Stessa?

Question

Now that Stessa has gotten a bit more established I am looking into its capabilities and qualities.

Has anyone left QuickBooks and gone with Stessa?

I personally feel QuickBooks is just too much for an investor like myself. Although I have quite a few properties, I have property managers for each, and basically only need to track my expenses and income by property.

I would love to hear feedback from a Stessa user.

Devin Redmond · Answer

Hey @Justin R. & @Mark S. -I run Customer Success for Stessa and would be happy to answer whatever questions you may have. Stessa is quite different from Quickbooks in that it's purpose-built for real estate. It works right out of the box with transaction categories that map nicely to Schedule E tax reporting. It only takes about 5 minutes to set up a property and try it out. There are also some new secure document storage features to help keep track of leases, contracts, mortgages, etc.We'll eventually introduce premium features with associated fees, but plan to keep the core functionality free for all rental property owners. Hope that helps!

Mayi Nelson · Answer

@Justin R. I have both. IMO they have different uses for different people. I don’t think either is really designed or built to replace one another.

Daniel Hyman · Answer

@Devin RedmondI'd love to start referring my client base to an alternative to QBO, but I need the balance sheet feature. Can a balance sheet be generated on Stessa?

Justin R. · Answer

Thanks for the response. I would absolutely love to leave QBO and move towards something built for real estate. QBO is confusing for "non accountants" and now I had to hire a bookkeeper (in addition to my CPA) simply to input data into QBO. As soon as Stessa can meet all the metrics needed for tax purposes, property accounting, and bank accounting I will make the jump. At this time it just seems accountants are reluctant on switching from QBO.@Devin Redmond Do you feel the goal of Stessa is to replace Quickbooks (or other software) or just supplement them?

Daniel Godbout · Answer

Hi @Justin R., I made that switch and I prefer Stessa to Quickbooks for the light weight real estate accounting. It only made sense for me to manage my properties in Quickbooks if I had some additional bookkeeping help. I think Stessa would be new to most accountants (& was for mine) so we had to go back and fourth a bit this last tax year. I think you'll enjoy Stessa. Since it's free, give it a shot with a couple properties even if you're on the fence...

Devin Redmond · Answer

@Justin R. @Daniel HymanStessa is designed for property owners and we don't currently have plans to build an all-purpose accounting tool. We're focused more on asset management, including robust income and expense tracking and lightweight accounting. If you're doing complicated entity-level accounting and looking to reconcile bank account balances regularly, you'll probably want to run something like Quickbooks in parallel. Stessa will suffice if you're mostly interested in: 1) what's happening at the property and portfolio-level, and 2) what it means for overall investment performance.That said, we continue to improve and expand upon existing functionality. Future releases will undoubtedly include more reports and visuals, in addition to the new features we've just launched around real estate document storage.

Andrew Schildcrout · Answer

Has anyone figured out a way to "link" the QB accounts to STESSA? STESSA has great reporting and ease of use but QB is critical for my accountants to function correctly across our business's and holdings (both RE based and not). An integration where I could use both would be PRICELESS to us. thanks!

Daniel Hyman · Answer

Thanks for the clarification @Devin Redmond.If Stessa ever rolls out the balance sheet option, please let us know.

Natalie Kolodij · Answer

I wouldn't say a balance sheet defaults to someone being a more complex investor per say- It's just a requirement if any one is holding rentals in a Partnership...I'm in the same boat as Daniel where I'd have a hard time transitioning clients to it until it offers a balance sheet option. I'd say easily over half of my clients who own rentals own some in 1 or more partnerships.

Basit Siddiqi · Answer

@Justin R.you should be able to establish a starting balance into Stessa.Why don't you see how you like the transition into Stessa.Quickbooks normally is good for a 3-4 years before you need to upgrade if you have the desktop version.If you have a couple properties, I find the Quickbooks Online's costs can add up quick.