Bookkeeper v. Accountant

[Alex Schumer]

I have a macro level of what each skill does but should I have an accountant and a bookkeeper on my team or if I hire an accountant will they come with a bookkeeper.

Which one or both should I look to hire?

[Alecia Loveless]

@Alex Schumer I’ve always done my own bookkeeping but after preparing my taxes for year 2022 my accountant urged me to get a bookkeeper.

Through a comedy of errors I had to file an extension on my 2023 taxes and was finally able to hire a great bookkeeper in June of 2024. She prepared my books from 2023 and I got those filed. Since then we have focused on my 2024 books and I’m all ready to file my taxes now which is months ahead of my previous timeline.

My only question is what took me so long to hire the bookkeeper? I’m averaging about $350/month with the bookkeeper and we’re working with 8 properties and 31 units and 8 sets of accounts as I have one per property.

Obviously if your portfolio is smaller you should spend less.

The accurate P&Ls made it so much easier for my accountant to prepare the 2023 taxes. He was grateful I’d hired the bookkeeper.

If you’ve got property and aren’t well-versed in an accounting software I’d recommend starting with a good accountant and quickly adding a good bookkeeper. I see various large bookkeeper options at about $100/month if you want to go that route. It’s not necessary to stay local for these services as long as you have online bank statements or a solid way to get them to the bookkeeper.

For the first time I’m able to look at accurate P&Ls each month and KNOW what my portfolio financials look like.