Rental Investors: How many Checking Accounts do you have?

[Brandon Turner]

Hey folks - I'm thinking of switching up how I do my checking accounts for my rental properties and I'd love to hear from some of you who have multiple different properties. 

Right now - we run most of the income/expenses for all properties out of one "managing" checking account, and then just designate every expense for the property it's for, thus allowing us to do the bookkeeping from there. 

But I think I might actually just open up one separate checking account for every property, to make things simpler, on paper. 

I have 16 different properties (52 total units) - so I'd open 16 checking accounts and run each one completely separate.  I'll also have one "managing" account still that I'll use occasionally for things like my employees and credit-card things... and I'll just reconcile as needed.  

Am I crazy for planning 16 (well, 17) different checking accounts? 

How do YOU do it? 

(cc: @Ben Leybovich, @Cameron Skinner, @Bill Syrios, @Brie Schmidt, @Anca Alexandru Rader, @Jered Sturm... etc)

[Chris Eaker]

I really can't see how 16 separate accounts would be simpler than one. I know you'll be getting more properties, so that would necessitate more checking accounts. That would be an accounting nightmare in my opinion.

This is a perfect example of the K.I.S.S. principle.