Our goal is to be able to use either some type of software or spreadsheets to continue to build off of and help dial in our costs as we begin to hire more contractors for our team.

I highly recommend a well-qualified REALTOR who works with investors and knows how to help you best.7.

I'm wondering if you can help advise on this situation.My mother currently resides in a property located in Los Angeles County.

any help would be appreciated.

My suggestion would be to cap your utilities at a certain amount and have Tenants pay anything over that amount.That will help you manage your expenses, and also allow Tenants to gage their usage each month, and make adjustments if they don't want to go over the allotted amount.As far as collection, provide the bill showing any overages and just have them pay for it along with their rent. 

Thank you Daniel for that very helpful information.

The first thing I would do is to find an investor-focused realtor that can help you connect with reliable contractors, property manager, etc.

My weekly podcasts will also help you get a better feel of our market and then might help you learn our market quicker and with more data. 

This is where having contractors setup early will help you tons. 

Any advice/input/experiece would be amazingly helpful. .