All Forum Posts by: Max Emory

@Bob Asad, there are a lot of different account structures out there but absolutely keep security deposits in a separate account from your opex/income account. 

It can be a separate checking or savings but just make sure to have a "holding" account where only security deposits are held for your sanity.

I won't speak to liability since I'm not a property manager, attorney, etc. 

Just speaking from a cash flow management/account structure perspective.

Hey @Tyler Davis, I'll echo what @Angie Keefe and @Jake Baker have said. There are many ways to skin it but I would go ahead and upgrade to QBO Plus. We use QBO Plus for most of our clients. We track multiple disregarded entities using the location feature and multiple properties using the customer feature (units can be tracked as sub-customers). You can absolutely use classes in place of customers but classes are limited to 40 with QBO Plus. So, we avoid this by using the customer feature. The customer feature also links to the project feature if you want to make use of that eventually.

This structure works great for our clients and their tax pros. There is no "perfect" structure out there but I've tried a lot of different ones within QBO over the years and this is by far the best I've found.

I use this structure for my own portfolio as well.

Hope that helps!

Hey @Marie Copul, since you want to leave your job, I recommend focusing on a high cash flow business model within REI to begin with before getting into the lower cash flow (wealth building) models.

So, flipping and wholesaling are the typical high cash flow models within REI. We serve plenty of flippers/wholesalers who make around $500k/yr and some are higher.

Once your salary is replaced (or a good portion of it), then stabilize the flipping/wholesaling with a great team so it doesn't require as much of your time/energy. Then, begin dumping cash into buy-and-holds to satisfy the long-term wealth-building side of the equation.

If you wanted to keep your high-income job and only use REI for wealth building, I would recommend buy-and-holds (lots of different asset classes out there) from the get-go.

Lots of different ways to get there. Hope that helps!

Hey @Greg Wasmuth, I'm happy to reach out to my community to see who mostly uses Xero for their Clients. But, are you married to using Xero? We use QBO exclusively for all REI Clients and it works very well.

Is it the pricing that draws you to Xero?

Hey @Joanna Highet, happy to DM you my REI bookkeeping firm's short list of REI-savvy tax pros we recommend. I'll shoot it over.

Hey @Tony Guardado, happy to DM you my REI bookkeeping firm's short list of REI-savvy tax pros we recommend. I'll shoot it over.

@Tyler Koller, we use QBO for all of our Clients but I don't recommend it as a PM software (since it's not that). If you're looking for the all-in-one I'd go with a PM software (others have suggested some) and do what you can with it.

Then, as you grow further, look at more sophisticated/expensive options.

@Yosef Ajami, we use Quickbooks Online for all of our Clients (including syndicators). What specifically do you want to accomplish?

How much more money could you make if you knew your numbers, felt less stressed, and had more TIME? This is what we do for our Clients.

We are the bookkeeping foundation for Real Estate Investors (REI) & Skilled Trades. We serve Real Estate Investors (Flippers, Wholesalers, & Residential/Commercial Landlords), Real Estate Agents/Brokers, Co-Host Companies, Property Managers, & Skilled Trades Small Businesses.

How We Stand Out From Other Bookkeepers / Bookkeeping Firms:

1. Our Founder & CEO, Max Emory, has been an REI since the summer of 2019.

We speak the unique language of the REI industry and share the perspective of a Real Estate Investor. This saves our Clients an immense amount of time they do not have to spend teaching our bookkeepers how the REI industry works and what things like "creative financing" mean.

2. All of our bookkeepers are US-based, hold multiple certifications & are REI specialists

At a minimum, each of our Bookkeeping Professionals is U.S.-based, Bookkeeper Launch certified, QBO ProAdvisor certified, and Bookkeeping for Real Estate Investors certified (our very own REI bookkeeping course).

3. We have what you need to excel

We are stocked with a CEO, COO, Quality Control Specialist, Advisory Specialist, Clean Up Specialist, multiple Ongoing Support Specialists, Marketing Assistant, and Executive Assistant. We have built-in redundancies for our Clients and we all work together to ensure our Clients have an exceptional experience while having the financial information they need to make crucial decisions for their business. We also have a convenient mobile app client portal that makes your life a lot easier.

4. Communication is our #1 priority

5. Veteran Owned

Services We Do NOT Offer At This Time:

We do not provide tax services, property management services, payroll services, or AP/AR management services.

 Hey @Jim Peret, that's correct. That's what my tax advisor explained to me. 

As long as the property sold and the property purchased in the same year are both passive or both active activities, the losses from the new property that was purchased can be applied to the gain from the old property that was sold.