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All Forum Posts by: Ben Day

Ben Day has started 7 posts and replied 78 times.

Post: Accounting Software for Under 6 Units

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@Ben K. On 1099s, you are require to file them for any contractors you pay that qualify for reporting according to the IRS. If you don’t, you can end up owing huge fines. If you’re accountant isn’t talking to you about that, it’s time to switch bud :)

Post: Accounting Software for Under 6 Units

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@Ben K. Unless I’m seriously out of the loop, you can’t upgrade from Self Employed to Essentials and transfer your data over - SE is a separate product on a separate OS and it’s a bummer. Beyond that, SE is meant for service based businesses that don’t require a balance sheet.

I would really, really check in with an accountant and lawyer on some of these strategic points you have. Zelle is a terrible way to collect money or pay out contractors as you scale, biggest reason being lack of receipts and reporting as it’s meant for personal transactions. Most online processors make you pay for their service, but it saves you that trip to the PO Box and they usually have a cap on their fees to make it reasonable. Maintenance requests need to be kept secure and well documented in your records, I wouldn’t manage that on my phone alone.

I’m of the opinion that if you’re going to use an accounting software, go all in and get it right. Fudging the numbers or processes to keep a little extra cash on hand now means paying someone a lot of cash to fix it later, and slowing down your lending process for your next deal.

Post: Accounting Software for Under 6 Units

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@Ben K. I wouldn’t use either of those options honestly. QBO Plus has class tracking, which is what you need to be able to track and separate by property. I’ve seen a lot of folks try to get by with one of the lesser softwares and it’s a mess.

Your other option is to go to something like Cozy, Stessa, or TenantCloud. They’re built to help with leasing and rent collection, but they can help track expenses too. They are weak on accounting functions so I wouldn’t trust them to create a balance sheet, which is really critical for long term success.

Accountants will know QBO way better than these other softwares though, so I still recommend going with QBO Plus. If you wanted to take it a step further, find a real estate specific accountant that can train you on the best way to do your bookkeeping yourself in QBO Plus so everything is right and you don’t have a million dollar accounting cleanup down the road.

Post: LLC and simplified bookkeeping

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

So, if you want to be compliant, every LLC/Entity/Different EIN or filing number needs separate books and systems. To be specific, that a separate balance sheet, income statement, bank account, etc.

While you "can" force this to work in one quickbooks account by using classes, this can become really frustrating even for bookkeeping pros. I would seriously consider having someone else do your bookkeeping, or getting each LLC to a point where it can afford the extra overhead.

Post: Outsourced Bookkeeping For Real Estate Investors

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

Hey BiggerPockets! 

Lionshare Bookkeeping works exclusively with investors all over the country, creating killer financial statements that banks, partners, and CPAs love. We work with landlords, property managers, apartment syndications, wholesalers, house-flippers, and have experience in almost every offshoot of REI possible (land investing, installment sales, minerals, oil and gas, note investing. short term rentals, the list goes on).


If you are sick of doing your own books, or wishing they would magically do themselves, we would love to help out. We work with clients all over the country, including: 

Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, Hawaii, Washington, California, Utah, Idaho, Ohio, Maine, and more

We believe that the right person in the right "seat" makes all the difference in the world. Business owners belong at the front of their business, closing new deals and enjoying their cashflow. Let's face it - bookkeeping isn't how anyone wants to spend their day :) 

We find that plenty of tax planners would prefer to research and delivery high quality once a year (usually in April). Our goal is to deliver reconciled financial statements every month, a summary of what happened that takes 5 minutes to review, and the option to dive deep with us to make financial decisions every month. We use systems and various technology to streamline your bookkeeping, getting you out of the "admin" in your business and into the high value, $1,000/hour parts of your business. 

The best way to find out more about us is at www.lionsharebookkeeping.com - we offer Outsourced Bookkeeping, Side Hustle Assistance for folks not quite ready to outsource, and S.M.A.R.T. Leverage for REI Businesses looking to seriously scale in 2020.

Please let us know if you have any questions! Have a great day! 

Post: Vacation Rental Bookkeeping

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@Chase Hoover

Whenever an operations software is involved that doesn’t connect to Quickbooks, we look to see what kind of info we can get from it first. Best case is a csv or excel export with all of the data points.

From there, you should be able to upload the transactions to Quickbooks. Depending on the kind of account it is, you can either set up a “bank account” and classify them as transactions that way OR you can import them as deposit details using a software like Saasant (if you’re going to do this, you’ll get to do some reformatting and really need to know how QB works)

Post: Does Quickbooks Online file required forms automatically?

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@Julie Groth Quickbooks Online can do a LOT, but it won’t replace the human element. Once data is recorded you’ll have to file forms/pay estimates yourself. You may be able to speed this up using QBO, but it won’t do it for you due to liability reasons.

If you’re thinking about payroll as well, QBO does have a payroll service that will help file withholdings. I prefer using dedicated payroll companies over folks that think of payroll as an extra.

Post: BRRR method and taxes

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@Samuel Connor payne unless you had the property rented out somehow, all costs you put into the property (labor, materials, utilities, etc) are considered part of the asset (not expenses). Your tax pro should be able to help you clarify this further or find ways to claim some of those things as expenses the right way.

Post: How should I outsource bookkeeping?

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

Ah yes, my favorite topic! 

Time - depends on the bookkeeper, how experienced they are, how organized your information flow is, etc. The real question here is how much time are *you* spending on this, and how much is your time worth? 

local vs. virtual - if the greatest REI bookkeeper lives down the street from you, that means that your books only get done when they can physically get to you. Unless you want your bookkeeper in your house/office whenever they feel like it, you're looking at hiring an employee which is too complicated IMO for the size of your portfolio. When your systems are virtual, you can have the best people and not be tied to any one location in order to get things done.

Pricing - most bookkeepers I know are transitioning to flat rate pricing that includes software costs, based on the complication/volume of your business(es). A great example is the Quickbooks Online pricing for bookkeepers. REI requires "class tracking" which is exclusively a QBO Plus or Advanced subscription. QBO Plus with a QBO Bookkeeper runs at $300 ish per month per business, and that's a "chat roulette" bookkeeper who may not have much experience with REI and that you can't vet like a small business. QBO has priced this for "starter" businesses, so your costs will go up from there. Hourly gets into fun "employee" territory, which I would not do.

Systems - every bookkeeper is different, but there are some major systems usually in play. Common additional apps are things like Receipt Bank or Hubdoc for receipts. Accountant "view only" access to your bank so they can pull statements and check/deposit images without paying themselves. Some sort of client portal for handling sensitive documentation. 


Tax Prep - technically, a tax preparer should be able to use your financial statements to create your tax return. Most folks skip the bookkeeper and make the tax preparer do it all which leads to sloppy returns, delays, and lack of financial clarity throughout the year. Also, lenders often prefer financial statements in addition to tax returns (literally no one likes reading a tax return, it's just common and easy to ask for). 

Post: How to Interview a CPA and BookKeeper

Ben Day
Tax & Financial Services
Pro Member
Posted
  • Accountant
  • Oklahoma City
  • Posts 80
  • Votes 64

@JoDell Walker

Excellent list already! I would add in things that are popular in REI, but obscure to the "normal" world to test just how experienced in real estate they are.

An excellent example of this is asking about wholesaling. A real estate bookkeeper will know what this means. A pretender will think you’re talking about “normal” wholesaling in a retail shop/manufacturing environment. It’s an excellent trick to weed out the unworthy :)