Keeping Track of financials on rentals

[Tyler Gilpin]

How do you guys keep track of the financials for your portfolio? Cashflow, how much you have left on mortgage, etc. Lay everything out in Excel or do you use an app? 

[Theresa Harris]

I use a combination of excel and a notebook.  Excel tells me how much all of the regular things are (mortgage, insurance, etc), but the notebook is where I track everything for taxes and what I grab when I do my taxes (along with a file with all the receipts and copies of bills).  I have all the expenses in a different row with repairs at the bottom and a column for each property.

There is software you can also use.  Do whatever works best for you.

[John Underwood]

I use Excel for everything.  Makes it easy at tax time.

[Nathan Gesner]

Quote from @Tyler Gilpin:

How do you guys keep track of the financials for your portfolio? Cashflow, how much you have left on mortgage, etc. Lay everything out in Excel or do you use an app? 

Go to the Etsy website and search for "property management spreadsheet" and you will find more options than you can shake a stick at. Most of them are for less than $10 and can track 10-20 rentals. Look for one that includes a good training video to teach you how to use it.

[Chris Seveney]

Quote from @Tyler Gilpin:

How do you guys keep track of the financials for your portfolio? Cashflow, how much you have left on mortgage, etc. Lay everything out in Excel or do you use an app? 

 starting out I use excel, as I grew I used quickbooks but there are many other programs out there that can track this for you.

Regarding left on mortgage, I just left that with the lender and the digital statements but many times that is like watching the grass grow - especially if its a 30 year mortgage...

[Tyler Gilpin]

Man thank you all for taking the time to respond! Super helpful. The forum is a life saver. 

[Tom Thomson]

Excel for my 15 properties has worked great for us.

[Daniel Hyman]

If your portfolio is 1-2 properties and you prefer to keep things simple, excel or google sheets would would work.

If your portfolio is 3 plus then software would be the way to go. There are multiple vendors out there.

[Max Emory]

Hey @Tyler Gilpin, once you have more than a few properties, you'll want to consider software. But, excel is totally fine in the beginning.

We use QuickBooks Online exclusively for all of our REI Clients. I use it for my personal portfolio as well. We've found it has superior reporting features, integration features, and is overall more efficient to work within than other REI-specific software.

The downside is QBO is not set up for REI so you'll need to do that or work with an expert to ensure it is set up for your business appropriately.

Something else to keep in mind is your entity structure and how your entities file tax returns. As a general rule, each entity that files a separate tax return (partnership, s-corp, c-corp, etc) will need its own QBO subscription. If entities are disregarded, you can keep up with more than 1 in a single QBO account using the location/business feature to keep track of them separately.

If you want to discuss any of this further, I'm happy to answer questions and help walk you through it.

Best of luck!

[Twannisha Jackson]

i do everything by hand, keep all receipts. have a binder strictly for real estate. 

[Jeremy Brown]

Excel and Quickbooks

[Gina Shumway]

I personally do excel spreadsheets and also have Stessa to track my transactions. That tends to work well. As far as balances on mortgages...I prefer not to look. Hahaha. I make sure they are paid and continue to move forward. Except at tax time and when I'm considering a possible 1031 etc to tap into the amount of equity I have.

[Landon Mizuguchi]

I started out using google sheets up until I had 2 properties. I switch to QBO and then realized I needed 1 subscription for each of my LLCs and custom setup for reports. Moved to Digb. I just need to run 1 report and I can see income/expense by property and LLC

[Charles Perkins]

I use a combination of Excel and QuickBooks (Professional Version).  I also have used apps to collect payments,  but don't like cloud programs for reporting or financial data storage.

[Basit Siddiqi]

If you have a few amount of properties, I would suggest excel.

If you have more than a few properties, I would suggest an accounting software like quickbooks desktop, quickbooks online, Stessa or Xero.