what is best software for managing properties/accounting?

Question

whats the best software for managing accounting and taxes of rental properties.  Is quickbooks still the goto or is there another great software solution?

Jonathan Johnson · Answer

I've been building a list of property management software. It's hard to compare a lot of them but here's what I got.

Bryan Wilson · Answer

As an accountant I'll mention that you will have a much easier time finding accountants that use QuickBooks over other programs.  If you decided down the line that you need to push all record keeping out to a bookkeeper.  Xero is a solid product as well, but my experience has found that not many people have used it as a tool regularly.

I think it you can't go wrong with either of those two, but personally my choice would be QuickBooks just so that if I were to pass off my books it would be a fairly simple process.

Jason Hartley · Answer

@Greg Barbre - I'd highly recommend checking out Rentec Direct before going any  further.  It's designed specifically for landlord accounting.   Here's my  breakdown of the options from a 100 unit landlord perspective:

1.  Rentec Direct - Excellent property management accounting for managing rents and property maintenance, tax, etc.  Not super strong on corporate accounting features (balance sheet, accrual, AP), which I don't need anyways.   My tenants love the tenant portal that Rentec provides.  Rentec is a  great solution for anyone managing less than 1000 properties.  I use Rentec for managing about 90 properties, and I can say they absolutely have the best support of any of the options talked about here.

2.  Quickbooks - very steep learning curve, but has the best true  accounting support.  QB wont have anything specific for tenants though,  so you won't get a tenant portal or easy online EFT payments, etc.

3.   Buildium - They don't seem to like landlords anymore - they have moved their  focus to large property managers.   With their rapid growth you don't  get good support anymore, just somebody reading a script or redirecting  you to help articles.  I read that they just raised their prices by 20% again this year, as they have done almost every year.  They are now one of the most expensive options.

4. Cozy - A free platform that just began a few years ago.  They focus on the tenant's and the accounting features for landlords is pretty immature.

5. Tenantcloud - Another free platform that is (or will be) ad driven.  Very new and immature.  I listened to a podcast including their CEO the other day and he says they are going to put ads up everywhere to pay for it so they can keep it free.

6.  Appfolio - Pretty much the same as Buildium, designed for large property managers willing to pay big bucks.  Requires a 1-year contract and very high setup fees.

7. Yardi - Designed for 10,000+ units.  Extraordinarily high learning curve and very expensive software, but it does it all.

@Jonathan Johnson - reviews.com is not an actual review site - they just are advertisements is all.  They just recommend the software that pays them the most and they don't actually contain any real reviews.  I wouldn't personally refer anybody there because it's junk data and just an advertisement for those 3 companies that pay them for the leads.  Have a look at actual user reviews instead (people using these products), and I think that gives a much cleared picture of the quality of each product.  Best place I've seen for that for this industry is software advice..   Here's the list of all their property management software:

http://www.softwareadvice.com/property/

Ben Travis · Answer

@Greg Barbre a great accounting software will still require you to collect all of your receipts and rents and do endless inputting. Use a system that is cloud-based, allows tenants to pay rent for automatic invoicing and late fees, includes a picture and video maintenance requests, and communication to tenants and maintenance people. There are solutions that do this on top off accounting or you can export to Xero and Quickbooks. The point is to find something that saves you time on the front-end, so it makes the back-end (tax time), so much easier. Some of the free options even have websites and digital applications included.

Matt Faix · Answer

@Greg Barbre We use Quickbooks online since that's what our accountant uses, it's fairly easy to learn, and is widely used in the industry.

Kim Meredith Hampton · Answer

@Greg Barbre you may want to look at Buildium

Jonathan Johnson · Answer

Buildium, Appfolio, and TenantCloud were reviewed by one website as the best.

I'm using Cozi.co currently and wish they had better accounting/reporting or repair requests. I'm using it for now because it's free from the landlord and tenant to set up autopay.

Daniel Hyman · Answer

@Greg Barbre Like @Matt Faix said, Quickbooks Online is the go-to software of choice. Xero is becoming more popular, but QBO probably has 80% market share. Check out the QBO Plus edition if you have multiple properties, as it allows you to classify transactions according to each individual property.

Trevor Ewen · Answer

@Greg Barbre

For business accounting, I find that Xero is vastly superior to Quickbooks. Better pricing model, integrations, and easier learning curve.

Kim Meredith Hampton · Answer

@Greg Barbre Are you managing your own properties, or are you just looking for something to put your information from your PM's??

what is best software for managing properties/accounting?

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