Best accounting software to track rental property income/expenses

[Alex Cons]

Hey BP, 

Tax season is right around the corner and another year went by that I did not track my bills! I would like to find a software that I could start using that will help me track my real estate income and expenses. 

I self manage my own units and I want to set up good tracking habits early on with a few rental units so that I can scale in the future. I would like a software that I could also use on my smart phone and under $15 a month. 

Any suggestions that are real estate friendly?

[Wesley Shelnutt]

David- I wish I could be of more help but I am unsure about this. I don’t have those scenarios in my business so I have not explored that in Rental Hero. Hopefully someone else that uses RH can chime in and assist you. The first 30 days are free too and it’s a pretty basic interface so you may be able to mess around on there and find what you are looking for. 

[Kunal Patel]

@David Lee Hall

Rental Hero has default categories you can report expenses too. You can also create new categories and subcategories for other expenses. You can do the same with income. 

[Tyler Stiller]

@Daniel Hyman

Stessa now does allow balance sheet items

[Anthony Cross]

I tried My Rental Hero after tracking all of my expenses/revenue in Excel for 5 years and don't think I'll ever go back.  I love the ability to categorize each as they come in based on property and expense/revenue type.  The exports are super helpful for inputting to external models.  Absolutely worth the free trial to try for yourself!

https://www.rentalhero.io/

[Kevin McGuire]

@Cara Powers That was super helpful, it helped me understand why when I used locations and then moved to classes the balance sheet looked so different (and confusing!). It never occurred to me to tag by customer and skip Plus, I’ve discovered I have that turned off in the UI. In my case I don’t care to track cash by property, maybe one wants to do that if they’re in different LLCs. However, I am able to generate a seemingly ok balance sheet by creating equity accounts per property and tagging by class. But maybe I’m doing it wrong still.

I think my biggest gripe with QBO is that it models accounting, not the business, and so much of this discussion ends up being trying to figure out how to map your business concepts to the the generic capabilities in QBO. And that’s really difficult for folks here to do, since you need to learn both the business of rentals and how to think like an accountant and then how to translate between those. That’s a lot! As a simple example, there’s no lease object in QBO, there’s recurring transactions. I might try some of the other solutions mentioned here like Rental Hero but then at the same time I like using QBO exactly because it’s the defacto standard for running a business and connects to my accountant’s systems for year end tax prep.

Anyway, thanks Cara for increasing our learning here!

[Mitchell Westmoreland]

Hands down Rental Hero. I spent 2 months trying to get quickbooks online to work for my needs. I would always have to use QBO functionality 'improperly' to get it to work for my business. It's obvious QBO is trying to solve everyone's problem which makes it cumbersome to use for RE investors. Rental Hero gives me the P&L reporting I need, per property, per all properties, and per my overall business. QBO can't do that. At least not easily and inexpensively.

[Yinna Wang]

Originally posted by @Courtney Duong:

@Yinna Wang do you have to link to your bank accounts, credit card accounts in order to have all of expenses auto transfer/record on rental hero so you don't have to manually do the book keeping?  If yes, any concerns about having your financial info security in case rental hero server got hacked?  I see so much positive feedbacks from BP and on this thread I want to try it but have concerns about that.  That's why I ask.  Thanks.

Hey Courtney, sorry for the late reply! I do have my accounts linked, as that’s pretty much standard procedure these days of you want auto transfer on any platform. Rental Hero has manual upload abilities too, for instance if your bank isn’t supported.

I’ve been emailing their support for any questions and they’ve been incredibly responsive and helpful. If you want you can try asking them about any of your concerns.

[Courtney Duong]

Originally posted by @Yinna Wang:

Originally posted by @Courtney Duong:

@Yinna Wang do you have to link to your bank accounts, credit card accounts in order to have all of expenses auto transfer/record on rental hero so you don't have to manually do the book keeping?  If yes, any concerns about having your financial info security in case rental hero server got hacked?  I see so much positive feedbacks from BP and on this thread I want to try it but have concerns about that.  That's why I ask.  Thanks.

Hey Courtney, sorry for the late reply! I do have my accounts linked, as that’s pretty much standard procedure these days of you want auto transfer on any platform. Rental Hero has manual upload abilities too, for instance if your bank isn’t supported.

I’ve been emailing their support for any questions and they’ve been incredibly responsive and helpful. If you want you can try asking them about any of your concerns.

Thanks @Yinna Wang.

[Roy Green]

I self manage and use www.RentalHero.io 

It works on my phone and it is easy to track income and expenses and record receipts.  The software is super simple to use and you can try it for 30 days for free.  You can track multiple rental units and can track it by door or by unit or both. The reports are nice and so are the notification / reminders that can be set up. 

[Kyle Moffat]

Hi All!

This has been a great thread and it seems like a big majority of folks are finding RentalHero to be a great value and time saver.  That said, it seems like a lot of questions surrounding 'property management software' are trying to answer two things:

1) Property Accounting
2) Tenant management (bill pay, repair requests, screening, etc.)

It seems that RentalHero squarely fits within the first category.  Are any landlords utilizing another software to accomplish the second portion of what a complete landlord software might be used for?

[Jill Slater]

I have been really happy with rentalhero, super easy to use and upload receipts, link to bank accounts and the customer service also has been good.   They have a 30 day trial which I appreciated as well.  Good Luck!

[Kabir Gandhi]

also been happy with rentalhero for bookkeeping. I own 2 commercial office buildings with a total of 19 units

Quickbooks was too expensive / complicated for me.

Stessa wasn't feature rich enough for me. quick response from customer service.

Only negative is no balance sheet, but this is simple enough to do with excel.  I have one credit card per building, one checking account and one savings account that holds security deposits.  But this would be a nice feature for them to add.

I would also love some suggestions for tenant management as well if anyone has any feedback.

[Mylie Tong]

I like rental hero as it has all the function I needed and very reasonably priced

[Kyle Moffat]

After reading gobs of threads/posts about this, I didn't really need the tenant communication function for our 8 doors since we are migrating these to STR units. After the free trial with RentalHero I've given them my credit card and we are off to the races. This is certainly more of an accounting software but it does seem intuitive to use and easy to integrate to your credit cards, bank accounts, etc.

Yes, it does require work to keep up with, but anything does.

[Ammon Conyers]

I tried Quick-books and Quicken and both are a little pricey and have too much fluff, which I don't really use. I started using Rentalhero.io and is seems to be easy to navigate and cheaper price.

[Richard Walker]

Just finished up my 30 day trial with rentalhero.io and signed up for the year. I get all my transactions on a Sunday and quickly go through them. Definitely worth the 10 dollars a month.

[Georgee Gilbert]

I used Rental Hero and have been using it for the last 4 years.  I love it! It's very easy to use and keep track of your rental income and expenses. Simply The Best! 

[Angel Figueroa]

I just recently started using a program called Rental Hero to track all my expenses for my rental properties and so far it has been great. It's super easy to use and you can link all your different bank accounts into the program to make it super simple come tax season. They even offer a free 30 day trial period. I've been more than happy with rental Hero and recommend it any investor looking for an easy to use program.

[Victor Jobb]

I also use Rental Hero to track all my expenses for my rental properties. I have been using it for over 2 years and It's very easy to use. You can link your bank account to it for easy income and expenses. We have over 10 houses and it makes our life much easier. We tried Quick-books but it was to time consuming and not very user friendly. You can add a pic or PDF of your receipts. So if you need to, you can go back and see what item was installed in a particular house and when. The mobile app works great too and you can also keep track of mileage. We are very happy with rental Hero and I recommend it to anyone.

[Patrick Copley]

I've been using Rental Hero. I'm not a "financial guy," and it's REALLY easy to use and understand!! 

[Hemal Patel]

I have started using rentalhero.io after doing research for multiple accounting software which were all expensive compared to rentalhero.io. And some of the free websites and software didn't have the features that rentalhero.io offers. 

[Tommy Parker]

Quickbooks could help you there. I use it along with Innago!

[Austin Dillingham]

We've been using Rental Hero to enter our receipts and assign them to specific properties. My favorite part about the software is it has a mobile app where you can scan your receipts in on the go. Super convenient. 

[Sean O'Keefe]

@Austin Dillingham you aren't required to keep receipts for purchases from your business credit card or bank account. The IRS says to keep records for your business tax deductions indicating:

• What you bought
• When you bought it
• How much you spent

It doesn't mention requiring paper receipts at all. There is an exception. A receipt is required if you make an out-of-pocket cash purchase for > $75. 

[Wendy Saunders]

Recommending Rental Hero!   Great program, simple to use, everything in order for tax prep.  I've been using it for my 16-unit family portfolio for 4 years and couldn't do with out it.  Great price too!