The Bookkeeping World

[Nataly Llanes]

As new investors my husband and I are learning as much as we can get our hands on before taking the plunge into our first rental, hopefully beginning of next year.

As we build our team, business plan, and organize finances we realize the tremendous importance of keeping tract of those assets and its financial.

So my question to you all is the following:

-How do you keep track of your assets? Softwares?

(QuickBooks, Buildium, Quickens, Excel?

- What was your decision based on when you made your choice?

Thanks in advance,

Nataly 

[Jennifer Griffin]

We have used all of the softwares you have mentioned. We find the easiest way for us to do it, is to use Excel and Buildium together. The reason why we like Buildium is because we plan on having a Property Management Company one day, and it gives us a way to screen tenants, have online applications, keep track of late payments, and gives us a way for tenants to pay online. Just to name a few. However, I would not recommend Buildium if you have less than 5 properties unless you want to scale very quickly. 

We also use Excel as a quick way to show our lenders our income, and to keep track of expenses and debts. Buildium would also allow you to do this but we haven't gotten comfortable doing it yet. We will attach a photo of our Excel worksheet and if you'd like a copy please let us know. FYI we have deposits under our income column because once you keep the deposits for repairs, it becomes income. Hope this helps.