Should you have a bank account for every property you own?

[Olga Merino]

My parents own 4 properties with a total of 37 units. I recently started helping them with the business and I want to help them organize their accounting better. 

My questions are:

• How do you all do your accounting with multiple properties?
• Do you all have multiple bank accounts? (one for each property)
• Do you manage separate expense accounts for each one?
• How do you all organize your accounting? are you very specific (assigning expenses to units themselves) or broad (assigning expenses to the property in general)?

Thank you in advance!

[William Battistelli]

I only have one rental (with a partner), which kind of forces us to have a separate account for it.  One thing that I have found to help keep track of the financial side of rentals is E-Money.  This software functions similar to quicken’s mint, but allows grouping of items for rentals together such as mortgage, property, bank account, so you can see each grouping separately, and how they factor into the big picture of your finances.

If you want more info about the software, feel free to reach out.