Accounting/Property Management Solutions for first property?

[Christopher Ryan]

My wife and I are just about to close on our first rental property. It is a mixed use unit with 1 commercial and 4 residential properties.  To start, my wife is going to do the daily property management duties and I oversee big decisions and help out.  It has been a long journey from deciding we wanted to get into rental properties to actually finding something we were interested and getting through all the details.

I have gone through many posts, web pages, etc, about Accounting Software (most people seem to use Quickbooks) and seen many posts about "Property Management" software.  What I can't figure out is there a single solution for both. Something that can help me track my units in my property (and future properties) as well as cover all the expenses/incomes the business will occur to make it easier for me or an accountant at tax time.  My wife is currently planning on just using Excel, but I suspect, we will find the limits of that quickly.

So, for all the solutions out there, are there ones that provide the "whole package" for the small number of units have have, or we just best off with Quickbooks (haven't ever even tried, I am software savvy, but my wife thinks too much software will make her life harder) and keeping track of tenants and specifics about late rent, etc, on our own?  

Throughout this entire process, I have found that I don't know the answer to most of my questions until I am deep in it (for example, it took me talking to several commercial lenders about various different properties before I could really grasp how commercial loans worked (and their various different products, etc).  Because of this, I have been furiously trying to research the "right" solution before we have even closed on our property (which is driving my wife nuts, and she is the one who would benefit), going as far as signing up for free trials of several solutions to see what they felt like (tried Rentigo, Rentulations, and SimplifyEm), but haven't been excited about what I have seen (none of those provided enough that I wouldn't need Quickbooks, some where ugly, some more then we need, etc).

Any advice on where to start? Do we start with Quickbooks online as well as Excel or something for renter specific things (tenants, etc)? Do we just try to do the whole business using an Excel spreadsheet? 

Thanks in advance for any advice! Lots of things to learn!