All Forum Posts by: Cliff Benner

 Hi Rene! My advice, as an Accountant, would be to have an Accountant help set up your Chart of Accounts and Class/Locations at least. This is where a lot of people make mistakes and then keep those mistakes going until they decide to outsource it.

Also, Tax Accountants can create Profit and Loss Statements but that isn't their specialty and they aren't focused on keeping your financials in order. A good Accountant or Bookkeeper will work with you to tie out all your accounts and let you know any issues or advice as it comes up throughout the year.

I would be more than happy to chat with you more about your finances, I was one of the few Bookkeepers to be invited to BiggerPocket's Financial Service offers and have been working with them on ways to improve it as I help more and more investors with their Books. 

It helps I am an Accountant and have all my accounts sync in, with Work Papers for depreciation, asset basis, and use my monthly statements to get me the correct Interest and Principal amounts each month.

I do this same thing for my clients and they really like being able to see how they are doing each month. 

When negotiating, did the renovation credits decrease your final purchase price and your monthly payment terms?

 For my Bookkeeping clients, we sign them up on BOX and are able to share the folder with them. They can then Download the app and scan receipts right into it where I can make sure it is accounted for and file it away for them. It also lets them sign pdfs on their phone so they can sign contracts and send them off if they need to.

I think of cashflow in more of the accounting sense, so Cash in vs Cash out, Cash flow is whatever is after that. We leave everything in the business for Real Estate so $500/month is a good number for us, then we can add to our reserves, plan a fix, or save for the down payment on the next one. 

Hi @Adam Hoeker

I have my clients all on QuickBooks Online.

We sync in their accounts to reduce human error in entries, and track each property's expenses and transactions to prepare for Tax time, this helps us to be prepared for 1099s as well, track Asset Basis and Depreciation, Mortgage Balances, and any Equity items.

Since QBO is very common, it is easy to connect a Tax Accountant to this as well and have them pop in to grab reports they need to file. 

I would be happy to hop on a call and discuss more, I like seeing that you are being proactive about it so that way you can get a Good foundation set up, as you grow!

I strongly recommend doing something with getting Books in order for Tax season, this gives people 3 months to get an idea of what they can do to make it easier on them and possibly cheaper. 
I try and push my clients a bit more on year end items from October on so January isn't a Poop show for all parties. 

Most PMs offer "bookkeeping services" as a statement showing all the transactions per property they are managing. These transactions don't included additional expenses the business incurs like meals, travel, dues, subscriptions, marketing, accounting, licenses, phone, internet, etc. I would be skeptical of one who offers all because they would then control how your income and expenses are being coded and they could be doing something nefarious. 

I recommend hiring a Bookkeeper who is Independent of the PM and knows what they are doing because if they PM is doing weird things they can catch it and have no care if you fire that PM. 

I would be more than happy to discuss Bookkeeping services with you, if that is what you are looking for? Send me a message and we can get something on the calendar.

I feel for a mortgage it is better to pay the minimums, as long as that interest rate is low. I would pay off everything else first; credit cards, car loan, personal loan, college loans. 

There are so many things that you could put extra money towards that will compound more now and grow into something bigger than paying off your mortgage early. I would say what you are doing now with the investment fund is great, then find a real estate deal or a business to use that amount in the fund to purchase and repeat, and/or max your HSA out first.

I used a Job Recruiter who knew my work was looking for an Accountant. I work at a Warehouse Developer that builds from ground up, then rents them out and manages everything so I get to see a lot of sides of Real Estate. 

The recruiter was free for me. 

I also do Bookkeeping as one of my businesses and have lots of Real Estate clients where I get to learn different things about their business and talk with them.