All Forum Posts by: Ben Day

@Michael Barry

We've seen a lot of success from folks using a management software like OwnerRez for their STRs. Connects to all the booking software, creates and syncs invoices to QBO, makes it easy to take direct bookings. Might make your part time REI job a little easier :)

@Paul DeSilva

I’ve been disappointed with Buildium for awhile. We tell clients all the time to use whatever works for them on operations and to leave the bookkeeping for QB.

My favorite operations software right now is TenantCloud, solely because the paid version (which isn’t anything close to Buildium) syncs invoices to QBO.

I don’t think you’ll be able to avoid fees from other sites for much longer, online subscriptions are the new normal from what I can tell.

@David de Luna

Dave crushed it.

Just to reiterate - no one should be claiming flip costs as expenses until the property sells. Not only is it flat wrong, but you’re putting yourself on a tax rollercoaster of huge “losses” in one year and huge “gains” with taxes in another. Nobody likes that.

Bookkeeping for Flips is fundamental. If you can work the system to qualify (or avoid qualifying) as a dealer, that’s totally up to you and your tax planner.

No legal or tax advice given.

@Patrick McKenna

This is the stickiest thing with REI software - if you want to do your accounting on it, you need someone that knows it.

Bench and Proper are based (from what I can tell) on technology doing most of the work. This allows their businesses to scale, but can trim out some of the human element.

Hiring on Upwork may be your best bet if you know exactly what you need done and have all accounting procedures documented and in place.

Going with a niche bookkeeping biz that doesn’t depend exclusively on tech would mean not having to create your own systems and maintaining that human element. The biggest issue you’ll run into here is the software. Sometimes the best folks for the job just don’t know the niche software better than they know Quickbooks. If you stick with your systems, you’ll end up having to train them anyway.

I would start thinking through this by figuring out what your budget is, what your systems are like, and whether or not you’re married to rent manager.

BTW - bench and proper are both on track for standard minimum bookkeeping costs. Only go for cheap when you can manage the consequences.

Excited to be there! 

Excited to be there! 

@Tony Nguyen

The most common thing we deal with is that your boots on the ground should do something - anything - to communicate what they received and spent. It doesn't have to be 100% amazing accounting, but if they can document their stuff and you can put some easy systems in place, a bookkeeper that is experienced in REI should be able to work virtually and prepare reports.

This is all about systems and team - if you don’t trust your on site team to submit receipts and track rents, it’s time to get a new team for that.

@Allison Snyder I do not, sorry :) I don’t like that Buildium doesn’t connect to my other favorite softwares so we don’t use it internally. I mentioned it because it’s incredibly popular.

@Allison Snyder

Hey Allison! Do you want to be in charge of those tasks long term? If you want to keep your team really small, then it’s probably worth it to take some classes. If you really, really do not want to do bookkeeping it might make more sense to start shopping for a bookkeeper that understands real estate.

Best case scenario, it may be worth it to you to have a system set up just for operations so you can add more units first. Property specific software like TenantCloud or Cozy would help with rent collection. From there, you could make payments to owners using Melio or Bill.com.

If you pick tools that “play well with others” and connect to each other, you could have a system that you and your team uses that is separate from your accounting system. This way, you don’t need to learn accounting and your bookkeeper doesn’t have to get involved in more than they need.

You could go for something like Buildium if you really want to teach yourself a doozy of a software that “does it all”. Buildium does not play well with others though :)

@Colin Reid

I can 100% guarantee that all levels of bookkeeping training exist, especially for real estate investors. Depending on your scope and needs, they may even be able to tell you how to get started for free or for cheap and scale up when you’re ready!