Software for rental properties

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Topic Author
evelynmanley
Posts: 1022
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:13 am

Software for rental properties

Post by evelynmanley »

Hi all,

For those of you who own and manage rental properties, can you recommend software for keeping track of all income, expenses, taxes, etc., for each individual property?

Thank you!
letahl
Posts: 217
Joined: Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:17 am

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by letahl »

We use apartments.com and QuickBooks. The later is an online monthly service now unfortunately.
JohnFromPNW
Posts: 194
Joined: Tue Apr 26, 2022 11:58 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by JohnFromPNW »

Yardi if your portfolio is big enough / can justify the expense. Otherwise, appfolio. Just my opinion, certainly there are others.
dboeger1
Posts: 1411
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2017 6:32 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by dboeger1 »

I don't own or manage rentals, but I have to imagine that you could do a whole lot worse than with Excel or another spreadsheet program combined with cloud storage. The reason storage is useful is that you can upload images of receipts and keep links to them in your spreadsheets, which is not something commonly supported in more single-purpose applications. Bonus points if you use software with OCR that can automatically extract receipt text from images; I think Microsoft's office apps have this built in now. There's a bit of a learning curve if you're new to spreadsheets, but they're just so useful that I think it's worth it to learn.
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TinyElvis
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Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 2:33 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by TinyElvis »

I use Quicken Home and Business as it includes a Rental Property module.

https://www.quicken.com/personal-financ ... l-property
"Give a cat a fish and it will eat for a day. Teach a cat to fish and it will just sit there waiting for you to give it a fish."
4nursebee
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Location: US

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by 4nursebee »

Had 4 rentals. Used Google drive (Sheets) and one envelope. Envelope got divided into four piles at tax time. Called insurer for data end of year. Banks send statements on mortgages. Receipts were pretty easy to keep track of as work rarely overlapped and had PO numbers on each, used address # as PO #. Bank statements kept track of income.

Can also do this monthly on Google drive.

If using a CPA, ask how they would like to get the data. Mine did not care.
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Oddball
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Re: Software for rental properties

Post by Oddball »

5 rental units over 3 different addresses.

We have one excel sheet dedicated to each rental unit for various expenses and the rental income, stored on a cloud drive. Self-management so no tracking of management fees. I do most of the handy work so we normally only have 2-4 contractor (appliance repair, pest control, random one-offs like large windows replaced or electrical work beyond what I can do) payments to keep track of each year total.
Do 98% of our shopping for parts/materials at Home Depot and use their HD Pro to track expenses over the year (put in a job name for each purchase). Get their end-of-year summary for each unit, plug it into the excel sheet.

Used the same CPA for the past 5+ years who does all the deprecation, etc.
irr
Posts: 95
Joined: Thu Aug 19, 2021 10:01 am
Location: Carolinas

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by irr »

Look at Appfolio, Buildium, or Apartments.com.

Personally, I have 3rd party property managers and keep all books on QBO.
Real estate, where even the most mediocre can become wealthy.
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quantAndHold
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Location: West Coast

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by quantAndHold »

I always just had an excel spreadsheet, and created folders in a Google drive to hold scans of all the receipts.
av111
Posts: 717
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 12:27 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by av111 »

+1 for excel sheet.
AV111
richard.h.gao
Posts: 340
Joined: Tue Jan 18, 2022 11:34 am

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by richard.h.gao »

It's just a one time calculation at tax time, add income minus receipts. Not sure what you need to keep track of. :confused
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leonidas
Posts: 487
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:58 am
Location: Mansfield Township, NJ

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by leonidas »

I use Innago and Stessa. Both Free and do a pretty good job. I am testing out which one I prefer. Innago sends Invoices to your tenants and tracks maintenance requests so I'm leaning to using that one. Stessa has better reports for taxes. For a few rentals those are good enough.
Topic Author
evelynmanley
Posts: 1022
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:13 am

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by evelynmanley »

Thank you all for your input! I posted the question on behalf of my son. You've given him a lot to consider and learn about. I'll follow up if he has any questions or comments - and maybe he will join this forum himself. Thank you!
make_a_better_world
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Re: Software for rental properties

Post by make_a_better_world »

Appfolio
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Chicken lady
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Joined: Tue Dec 17, 2013 11:46 am

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by Chicken lady »

I also use Quicken for Rental Properties. If you're accustomed to using products from the Quicken family, this is an easy switch to a different version of the basic Quicken software. This allows you to continue tracking your personal accounts, track investments, do all the typical stuff of a customer based bookkeeping program. Not overly complex.

BUT

Quicken started as an Intuit owned company. It has been sold several times since. There is not transition from the Microsoft platform to the apple platform. Tech support is iffy.

I cannot honestly recommend this software unless you're already hooked on the Quicken brand.
av111
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Re: Software for rental properties

Post by av111 »

leonidas wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 2:04 pm I use Innago and Stessa. Both Free and do a pretty good job. I am testing out which one I prefer. Innago sends Invoices to your tenants and tracks maintenance requests so I'm leaning to using that one. Stessa has better reports for taxes. For a few rentals those are good enough.
Thanks for posting. Didn't know about these
AV111
Piper59
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Joined: Tue Nov 21, 2017 3:48 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by Piper59 »

I'm managing 8 doors at two different properties. About a year ago, I started using Stessa for my book keeping, accounting and financials - It's been great. Best part is it's free until you get to a certain amount of properties (I think it's 10). Previously, I was using the spreadsheet method, but Stessa can give you some reports and insight into your rental business.
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Sandtrap
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Re: Software for rental properties

Post by Sandtrap »

evelynmanley wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 7:50 am Hi all,

For those of you who own and manage rental properties, can you recommend software for keeping track of all income, expenses, taxes, etc., for each individual property?

Thank you!
Owned and managed over 150 units (doors), plus own property management company for more units/condo's, etc, etc.
(40 years)

In the "old days": paper: various accounting forms (light green with teeny tiny squares).
Later, customized Excel that we could tweak to what we needed as time went by.
Used Excel for the financials, unit records, maintenance records, various building expenses, etc. (everything).

We tried various "for sale" property mgt software, etc, but they were either too bulky and complex, or too simple.
What worked was also the most simple without getting either too techy or too complex or important for what is actually needed.

j :D
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MrsBDG
Posts: 371
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Re: Software for rental properties

Post by MrsBDG »

Stessa and Waveapps are free options
JackoC
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Re: Software for rental properties

Post by JackoC »

leonidas wrote: Fri May 27, 2022 2:04 pm I use Innago and Stessa. Both Free and do a pretty good job. I am testing out which one I prefer. Innago sends Invoices to your tenants and tracks maintenance requests so I'm leaning to using that one. Stessa has better reports for taxes. For a few rentals those are good enough.
Up to now I just do my own excel spreadsheet of accounting general journal (every transaction entered) and generate full accounting and other reports annually by hand, with some other auxiliary spreadsheets (when lease renewals are coming, who paid on time, etc.). The reason I'm thinking of going to canned software is not because any of that is unmanageable but if the software providers gives a free way to collect rents electronically. Looking around briefly it seemed Innago offers this? Another I saw was Rentredi. Many tenants prefer electronic but collecting rent via a personal Venmo account is violating their terms of service and no way worth it to us to pay a 1.9% skim off the top of the rent roll that they charge on a business account. I believe it's legit to use Zelle for business purposes for free but not all banks* support it nor as many tenants ask to use it as Venmo IME.

*lenders sometimes require you use an account at their bank at zero interest, but other banks offer interest on checking so we have more than one operating account.
DE11
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Mar 29, 2019 10:22 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by DE11 »

You should check out Rent Manager as well.
sorethumb
Posts: 42
Joined: Mon Mar 20, 2017 9:47 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by sorethumb »

We use Avail, and it’s been very user friendly for us and our tenants.
donaldc
Posts: 50
Joined: Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:30 pm

Re: Software for rental properties

Post by donaldc »

Yardi for many years.

Property owned include 120 unit apt, 90 unit apt, 150,000 sq ft retail, 150,000 sq ft office
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