Software

[Pete Kelly]

Can someone recommend a software program that helps manage rental properties, in particular, expenses and income?

[Anthony Giannette]

@Pete Kelly @Chad Hotovec @Nate Nook

Hello Pete, a bit late responding. I've been using accounting software for over 20 years now. There are all levels of cost and function. Quickbooks is the de-facto king of the small business world but it is still far from the best. If you are new to it and contemplating using it, run away! It really is a very powerful program and requires hours of operational time before you can make it dance.

QB is good only if you own the property, know how to force it to recognize rents, automate the billing monthly to track rents due and are familiar with expense billing. QB has a lot of functionality. I find it cumbersome for business owners due to the learning curve and the squirrel factor of those quantity of functions. Customized invoices, online payments, automated reconciliation (not fully automated) and a hundred other nifty toys. 

Here are management packages to look into:

• Buildium (Inexpensive for 25+ units) Easy to use, makes sense. Must be watched when applying deposits to expenses though. We write checks straight out of the trust account to keep it from flipping out. Good portal for tenants. Substandard for owners. Good for investors.
• AppFolio (Expensive at $250 minimum) Professional software. Let your bookkeeper work on this one as it does a couple weird things in the background. Has a great onsite portal for tenants and owners. Good for Management companies.
• PropertyWare (expensive) This one is slow and clunky. Does all the things a management company would want except track commissions correctly. Has a great onsite portal for tenants and owners. Good for management companies who are not in a hurry to post rents every month. Did I say it was clunky?
• Yardi (Extremely Expensive) Only a pro should be in here. It still uses old style interfaces. It's ugly, clunky, CPAs love it. I unloaded this one before testing the tenant and owner portals. Drove me crazy.
• Quickbooks, Peachtree, MYOB, AccountEdge, Xero, Freshbooks, Quicken and Moneyworks are all professional general accounting software. None have the built in need to keep tenant and owner money separate. The user has to be aware at every step but can be done.
• MS Excel: Used by fortune 500 companies the world over due to its easy way of keeping the report the same year after year. Multiple worksheets in one workbook makes for keeping running ledgers easy. This is the simplest of them all once template is made.

I'm running on. There is a lot out there. I've mentioned the ones my field led me into. The biggest thing to watch for is the company's own list of functions. Many times these are not exactly accurate.