Stessa for Managing Real Estate Data?

[Margie Kohlhaas]

Has anyone tried using Stessa? It seems like they offer quite a bit for free but since they were just acquired I'm wondering if costs will increase. I plugged in my basic info and it generated a nice dashboard. I would love to hear feedback/thoughts from others. Thanks!

[Matt Eklund]

Regarding linking your bank account.

This is an optional step.  You can read about their security from their website, but I can understand if you don't want to do this.  It really only makes sense if you have a huge portfolio.

If your getting started, I recommend using the import feature.

Go to Transactions then click the Import link.  This will open up an import box.  Make sure you read the help link that explains how to import.  https://support.stessa.com/articles/2671184-split-categorize-mortgage-payments

You can build an import file for each of your properties.  Go to your banks website and download the transactions as a table that you open up into Excel.  Clean up the data as below:

• Consolidate the data into four (4) columns only.Date, Amount, Payee, Description. Columns should be in this order and with these specific column headers in row 1.

Then, re-save as a .csv format.

Do the same from your property managers website for your Rents and Expenses.

If you manage your propeties in Excel, your already a step ahead.  Just reformat the data and save.

Once the import is complete, you will need to go through each transaction and verify that it is catagoried correctly.

I am still tweeking and playing around with Stessa, but more than likely I'm going to switch over from propertytracker.com.  

The next item I'm going to be working on is recording my mortgage payments correctly.  When they import from the bank, they come in as the full payment. Which is principle, interest and escrow.  The proper way to record this is to then split that amount, using their split tool, into those respective categories.  Otherwise the escrow amount is counted as an expense and then the bank pays Tax or Insurance out of escrow, that is an expense too.  So it double dips.  Splitting the transaction into categories solves this problem.  https://support.stessa.com/articles/2671184-split-categorize-mortgage-payments 

Also, make sure you get the ProForma right for each property.  The actuals (left column) come in from your transactions, but the right column is manually inputed by you. (Proforma)

Hope this helps.