separate account and credit card for rental business

[Fayez Siddiqui]

We should make a separate account for the rental business but is it also recommended to get a separate credit card as well?

If so any benefit of a business card over a personal card?

If so what kind of payments would you use your rental account/card for? repairs? cleaning? marketing?

Thanks

[Michele Fischer]

You will hear arguments on both sides of this.  Conservative view is to keep everything seperate, and if you plan to hire out tax services they will appreciate that.  But all of our rental revenue and costs are co-mingled with our normal lives, except for the security deposits which are required to be segregated.  We are both in finance/accounting so we are diligent enough to sort the activity and retain receipts.  We do have a seperate account that tenants use when they go to the bank to deposit rent, for those who elect that option.  Many mortgages require accounts with their banks/credit unions, so we take advantage of those extra accounts and that becomes the rental reserve fund, but it is so easy to transfer money that you just need to figure out what works best for us.  We find plenty of ongoing costs to put on a credit card (landscaping and utilities being the most recurring), but we use our primary card to consolidate the rewards.