Sunday bookkeeping

Residential Real Estate Broker · Pineville, LA · Member since 2014 · 44 posts · 23 votes

I must admit that I struggle with bookkeeping . I always say that I'll do better on the next project or next year. This drives my husband nuts. One of my 2015 goals is to improve in this area. My strategy is to tackle this on Sunday's while watching hgtv. What is your bookkeeping strategy? Besides hiring someone lol...btw I use a wonderful spreadsheet that I downloaded on BP. Works great as long as you keep it updated ????.

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Brandon Hicks

Investor · Avilla, IN · Member since 2013 · 796 posts · 769 votes

11y

I actually enjoy this side of my business. I normally do it all on either Saturday or Sunday while my kids proceed to destroy my house unsupervised......

Maybe I should rethink the timing of this activity! :)

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John Blackman
Developer · Austin, TX · Member since 2010 · 371 posts · 284 votes
11y
We keep every invoice as a pdf in a cloud storage solution. We are as paperless as possible. Our company culture has a mild revulsion to paper. We treat it like a dog mess, oh no what happened, why is there paper on my desk?! Quick, scan it and get rid of it.
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John Blackman
Developer · Austin, TX · Member since 2010 · 371 posts · 284 votes
11y
@Frank Jiang
Consider what your time is worth when not purchasing software. QuickBooks as annoyingly 1995 as its user interface is, can still save you a lot of time. At the end of the year I literally click a few buttons and all of my 1099s print out. Compare that to having your accountant do them. I'm pretty sure it's going to be more to pay your accountant or for you to count them up manually. Don't step over a dollar to save a dime.
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Simon W.Business Member
Real Estate Consultant · Lehigh Valley PA & New York City · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 662 votes
11y
Frankly, i don't use QB and neither do the majority of RE Management firms. Not sure why BP members are so pro-QB. I know it's customizable and the argument is that "most" accountants use QB.
I just find QB very messy lol
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Kyle Grimm
Investor · St. Louis Mo · Member since 2015 · 211 posts · 129 votes
11y
@Simon W. so what program would you recommend?
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John K.
Investor · Madison, WI · Member since 2012 · 242 posts · 61 votes
11y
Use quickbooks, wake up an extra hour early any morning after you have a day of activity and do the accounting! Having solid accounting is key to rentals, so you know exactly where you stand with money and cash flow on each property. Being obsessed with your numbers is not a bad thing!
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Tish Henderson
Cartersville, GA · Member since 2015 · 11 posts · 5 votes
10y
John and Simon both make really good points.
I would also add, most seem to look at accounting as something "not" to do or something they don't want to do. In reality, this is the MUST do and must do very well.
Your potential investors rely on the quality of your books, and the validity in the numbers. The truly successful investors do not struggle to find money because they take this part seriously. Most struggling investors complain about not being able to find money and it's out there, but no one would rightly give over there hard-earned funds WITHOUT knowing you are more than capable of taking care of it and bringing them a healthy return, in a reasonable / agreed upon time frame at a rate beneficial to you both.
So, good real estate bookkeeping is a must, and too many try to skimp in this area. It's important to do it right from day one with software and not spreadsheets.
Software allow you to be nimble, make decisions daily, understand the holes in your financial plan, help you create a financial plan, look at the business from the big picture, estimate when you can sell property at a profit, know which vendors are treating you good etc, etc. There is really a ton of juicy, useful, profitable information in well kept books.
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Michael Lee
Investor · Coppell, TX · Member since 2008 · 2k+ posts · 646 votes
10y
Hello and welcome to BP! They should be a part of the Team members allready built. You need to have, possibly an experienced Agent on your Team, and get a referral from them or some other team member. You probably trying to minimize your expenses but they are usually worth every penny. You have got some answers ahead of me but I am 59 years old and I know what paying on bills and doing tax related tax stuff and I am just trying to give you the truth you need. The one of the cheaper ways to help you with help, you can hire a virtual assistant from out of the country resident. Do not try to do everything yourself. Good luck to you!
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Audrey Ezeh
Real Estate Investor · Las Cruces, NM · Member since 2016 · 186 posts · 173 votes
9y
Originally posted by @Richelle T.:

@Shayla Fletcher I don't have enough properties to justify paying for software so I use vertical rent. It's a cloud based property management and accounting program for landlord. I love it. It's better than an excel file because it generates the annual reports for you. No affiliation with the company, I'm just a happy user.
Hi Richelle, do you still use Verticalrent and do you still love it? Anything you wish it had? I am exploring options available and it is bubbling to the top in terms of features and affordability but there is very little discussion on the forums. There are certainly more popular management software companies that get all the press. Thanks in advance :)
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Ryan Gallagher
Vendor · Rossville, GA · Member since 2017 · 10 posts · 0 votes
9y
I use Xero for accounting and Hubdoc for document storage/retrieval. I also use Excel to produce some reports but I will usually make them available to owners in PDF format. I have chosen these applications because they are easy to use and they work well for vacation rental accounting. They keep your data secure and are accessible on any device that has Internet access.
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John N.
Panama City, FL · Member since 2017 · 83 posts · 77 votes
9y
In an earlier post a few folks mentioned problems with Lowes and Home depot receipts fading an easy solution to that is to take advantage of the email receipt service that both offer. Its tied to whatever credit card you use and it automatically emails you a receipt, Once you get the email simply save it in a folder that you create for each property. This way you NEVER have to carry those receipt around and lose them and you never have to scan them because they come to you in a digital format.
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Clint Galliano
Real Estate Agent · Houma, LA · Member since 2016 · 238 posts · 115 votes
9y
Another option, at least definitely for Lowe's, is to use their business credit or accounts receivable cards. They send you an itemized bill with each purchase (receipt) listed as a separate invoice. It helps keep track of what you purchased, makes for easy end of month accounting, and doesn't fade. Plus, they give at least a 5% discount on every purchase.
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Katrina Ryumin
Real Estate Agent · Vancouver, BC · Member since 2017 · 3 posts · 0 votes
8y
Originally posted by @Frank Jiang:

Shameless self promotion:
http://www.biggerpockets.com/files/user/SpiralLoxodrome/file/rental-property-accounting-spreadsheet
Hi Frank, do you still have the spreadsheet? We have started the rental business last fall and I am swamped now trying to organize all receipts and categories for 9 properties we currently own. Thanks!
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Zachary West
Member since 2018 · 4 posts · 1 vote
6y
QBO and the mobile app work great together to solve the receipt problem. You can use your phone to take a picture of the receipt with the mobile app and then it goes straight to your books. Also QBO is cloud based so everything is essentially real time. If you have a virtual bookkeeper (which is cheaper than hiring one) you can track everything if you're worried about them being trustworthy.
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