Instead of randomly looking on Zillow, I wish to create a workflow/ framework that can help me first identify the city/state to invest and then find and evaluate good deals there.

There are several active ones in the BP family.Aside from basic questions about workflow and pricing, I recommend asking this as a question in the interview process and let the CPA take it from there."

It does a lot of what most people want to do; provides a database of their lead records, and other contacts, as well as BUYERS and SELLERS, helps you build and organize lists, create marketing campaigns,  use their phone system that your purchased #'s for INBOUND and OUTBOUND tracking and KPI's, can offshoot direct mail, automated tasks and workflow follow ups, has a built in document generator, can skip trace records and you can use their data feeds or import your own into their platform.They have white labeled the program to other educators / promoters under various names like Freedomlogic, and others perhaps even Deal Automator (not sure)

Would appreciate folks' opinions on the platform or on any alternatives you use for banking or financial workflows (bookkeeping, etc).

I already introduce new tech and process to help work flow with mixed results.I'm happy to lease out a group of apartments to someone for our market rent (say, $1000/month).  

These fall into the mature platform category and are going to be feature complete, but each has a different workflow. 

It truly depends on your workflow, software needs, and budget.

My goal is trying to devise the best "template" to manage the workflow.

In terms of rehabbing the property, the workflow can range from throwing a coat of paint on a wall or two, to an entire gut of the mechanicals, windows, siding, and flooring.

Hey Ak,The way I get the accurate property tax value is by going to the county website and searching for the address of your interest.ex: https://www.indy.gov/workflow/... type in the address and you will be presented with the historical tax statements that you can use to input into your calculator.For figuring out the rent (trend) I use a combination of Zillow, redfin - With a filter having off-market properties with rent-o-meter to get an idea what they were rented for and how long were the properties in the market.I also use dealcheck.io to keep a track of the properties and use the analytics/numbers to make my decisions.