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. 

I would recommend keeping all of the data in one sheet and using filters to narrow down. 

You will be paying 6-10% for just having them collect rent. 

Checking: collect all income here, then use it to pay bills.

We are considering taking a 2-5 year risk of owning the home to collect on appreciation since prices are stagnant right now, and pray fire doesn’t take it.

I haven't seen much said about them but I'm satisfied with what I've experienced.. they've made me money and I collect rent every month.   

I lived for free for a couple years, while collecting rent checks. 

Maybe there's an angle for seller financing or some other creative approach to get the seller the total return they want over time, but it's hard to say without actual facts and data.

I'd estimate that there are less than 1,000 legitimate, or "professional" wholesalers, in the United States of America, as defined by individuals who make $100K flipping contracts, and collecting assignment fees, in any form, and who have made that amount of income more than 3 years in a row.

I looked into the maintenance option years back to discover a trend of:  apx. 8% monthly fee which only included rent collection (everything else from maintenance to turnovers etc, extra, and poor reputation on repairs.)