Bookkeeping for landlords managing property managers

[Ben Bakhshi]

Some properties are self-managed, so we create an invoice for each tenant, and mark them as paid as rents are collected.

When collecting rents that go through property managers, I am not sure what the best practice is in QBO.

Should I be invoicing the tenants (and then sending these invoices to the property manager), or invoice the property managers?

We are not sure what the best way to go forward with this.

[Bryan L.]

You do have to manage your property managers, but let them keep up with the book-keeping and provide you with a report.  That's what you are paying them for.  When you use a property manager, your job is to review the report each month (and year end), and make sure that you are getting paid the correct amount, make sure that there are no excessive maintenance/repair charges, and to make sure that the PM is being strict, firm, and fast on collecting from late and non-paying tenants.  I see no need to enter anything into quick-books, etc if you have a good PM that is providing you with good reports.  You just need a system to keep up with which tenants are behind (you can easily do this in Excel).  At the end of the year, the PM should provide you with a year-end report that you can give to your tax guy/gal.