You'll want a lawyer to draft up the Operating Agreement for you to cover everything, and perhaps an accountant to do the tax preparation and maybe even bookkeeping if you don't do it yourself.It looks like you have 7 silent partners... 

I would like a basic bookkeeping software, desktop, that I can purchase and use until I want to upgrade.

Should I make my LLC and hire my cpa and bookkeeper and stuff now before I have any business at all?

I hope.So I don't want to reinvent the wheel.What book keeping software to you guys prefer. 

These are two very different needs that might be best met with two different kinds of resources: A CPA for filing taxes, a real estate savvy bookkeeper for establishing your business financial systems.

The judge lectured them that their “book keeping practices were negligent at best and their attitude about it appalling”.

One big advantage I can see is that all the bookkeeping could be done through the management LLC (rather than through each separate LLC if it were set up the usual way), making things less complicated.

And you need to be meticulous with your bookkeeping, as HM lenders want paid receipts for every single item before they will reimburse you for each draw. 

From there you switch over to a Property management firm for ongoing bookkeeping and collection of rents.  

We are in the process of exploring bookkeeping software for use in our real estate business.