Investor · Mountain View, CA · Member since 2013 · 94 posts · 42 votes
I'm wondering how others with more than just a handful of properties stay organized. I have 25 properties, all professionally managed, so I'm largely keeping track of HOA, leases, property taxes, insurance, mortgage statements & income statements. Right now I'm using QuickBooks for the book keeping, and a simple file structure that looks like this:
Property name
Purchase docs
Pictures
Tenant leases
Paper trail
Year 1 (e.g. 2015)
Insurance
Mortgage Statements
Owner Statements
Property Taxes
HOA
Year 2 (e.g. 2016)
I also have been using Excel to keep track of the occupancy status of properties and vacancy. How are others organizing their portfolio? Do you have a file structure? Are you using a software package?
Property Manager · Livonia, MI · Member since 2011 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
we have 35 and i do most of the work. use only quicken property management. in it, you can add the property, tenant, lease terms, late fee amount, etc.
outside of that, i have a folder for each property. then i have a tenant file under that property. when the tenant moves out, i "close" that file, open a new one.
i have a few excel sheets, mainly to show property address and current rent. as rents come in, i mark them off on the sheet.
i know i am not efficient, but this works for me. i am not willing to spend hundreds per month AND learn a new software.
Investor · Mountain View, CA · Member since 2013 · 94 posts · 42 votes
9y
@George
@George P. Thanks for sharing your process! I once got the suggestion, "organize it like a 4th grade teacher" which probably isn't too far off the mark for what I've been doing. Glad to hear others are doing similar things.
Property Manager · Livonia, MI · Member since 2011 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
i wish you were closer so that we can get the laptops and compare notes over coffee. there are so many ways to be more organized! it's frustrating to go around and around!
maybe when (if) i get to 50, i will restructure the process from the ground up.
Investor · Mountain View, CA · Member since 2013 · 94 posts · 42 votes
9y
@George P. Ah well, if I ever make it to Michigan I'll have to look you up! How do you track vacancy? Right now I'm just keeping an Excel spreadsheet that tracks days occupied and days vacant per property and then sums up across my portfolio.
Property Manager · Livonia, MI · Member since 2011 · 4k+ posts · 1k+ votes
9y
that's actually one thing i dont keep track of. never have. i dont see the point to be honest. unless it's for including in the calculation for future purchases. otherwise, what's the reason? you can drop the price $50 and immediately get it filled, so it's price and season dependent. maybe i'm wrong.
btw, type "organized" in the search and there are 3k threads on it.
Investor · Mountain View, CA · Member since 2013 · 94 posts · 42 votes
9y
@George P. I track vacancy because I buy in multiple markets and it's different in each market. I saw the search responses for "organized". I must admit I only went through about the first 20 before feeling like they were about different stuff. Maybe I'll look again. Any thread in particular that caught your eye?
@George P. I track vacancy because I buy in multiple markets and it's different in each market. I saw the search responses for "organized". I must admit I only went through about the first 20 before feeling like they were about different stuff. Maybe I'll look again. Any thread in particular that caught your eye?
Investor · Rochester, NY · Member since 2016 · 477 posts · 426 votes
9y
@David Zheng I'm a fair hand at writing macros, and pretty experienced with Excel, but I don't think I've ever given any thought to using macros for anything on my REI spreadsheets. What do you use macros for on yours?
I just googled simple stuff, Could be copying over a tab to make a new month tab that keeps track of rents and expenses while changing dates to keep organized.
Pressing a macro button to take a current master expense sheet and copy paste value the file into another worksheet and save it as an official income statement that can't be changed again for recording purposes.
There's a lot of things macros can do. when you hit an inefficiency while using an excel and say I wish this were faster, it probably can be. I had 0 VBA knowledge 2.5 years ago. I just started to google and it helped a lot
Investor · Bothell, WA · Member since 2015 · 88 posts · 55 votes
9y
I have 25 units in 3 states. The management companies track mostly everything and pay the utilities. Recently I handed over the mortgage payment responsibility to the management company. I am thinking of doing the same for the taxes and insurance. The management companies are well staffed and so much more organized than I can be. When the management companies send me the monthly statements, I enter the key numbers into a big spreadsheet. That allows me to see the trends, creates year-to-dates for mortgage companies, and an end of the year summary for the CPA.
St. Helena, CA · Member since 2016 · 147 posts · 59 votes
9y
Macros are an awesome tool. I've used them at work when I repeatedly have to deal with large amounts of data in need of formatting. They can greatly cut down on the time you spend. You might want to look into Excel classes at a local community college, best of luck!
Investor · Mountain View, CA · Member since 2013 · 94 posts · 42 votes
9y
@Ryan Heywood Thanks for the tip on Excel classes. It sounds like I should get better educated on Excel macros given how much I use Excel for my real estate!
Investor · Denver , CO · Member since 2011 · 129 posts · 59 votes
9y
@Sam R. Be careful with the mortgage payment (or taxes & insurance) being made by the management company. If they get into financial distress and kind of forget to make a couple of your payments you could find yourself in foreclosure real quick. And the credit hit goes to you, not the management company. And with all the autopays and autodrafts that are available, I do not see the advantage of the Management company actually paying the bill. This has never happened to me but years ago I heard about it more than once. Plenty of people have lost their houses and their credit by giving up to much control. Just something to think about.
No issues with management company paying all the other bills since they can't foreclose or typically hit your credit. FYI Here in Denver, we had a very reputable title company that had been in business for years suddenly go belly up because they were playing with the numbers. Not sure how many people lost their earnest deposits on that one.
I'm a pretty big geek when it comes to this stuff. With cloud-based products and mobile devices, we are quite lucky to be able to have everything in digital format - at least that's what I do. I use a combination of Dropbox (file storage), Evernote Scannable (iPhone app allows you to easily take a picture and PDF any receipt and document and load it into Dropbox - it's amazing), Word Online (for lease and other templates), and Excel Online (for all financial and statistical tracking) for virtually every aspect of my business. Just as a note, I'm only at four properties right now, so I'd imagine as I scale up, I may have to move to QuickBooks or the like for an accounting solution. Luckily I work in finance for my day job so I get paid to learn more and more about how to efficiently track data and dollars.
I have a file structure in Dropbox like the following:
Company Name
Templates and Documents (this houses all of my leases, applications, and move-in/out templates)
Processes and Procedures (any operating procedure for work I do)
Property 1
Accounting & Finance
Expense Receipts (this houses all of my receipts which are numbered like "000001 - Home Depot - Materials for Faucet"). These receipt numbers are then input into my financial spreadsheet so I have backup documentation to reference if I need to.
Financial Tracking (this includes any other documents related to finances and my actual financial tracking file with my balance sheet, income statement, and cashflow)
Dimensions & Measurements (I keep dimensions and measurements for everything - you never know how handy this is when out at Home Depot or Lowes)
Photos (obviously pictures of the property)
Tenant 1 (this folder houses all tenant documents like a lease, general information, contact info, etc.)
Tenant 2
Property 2...
I do use Excel for everything and it works very well. It's very pliable and can be adjusted to track any sort of statistic or metric you need. I think one of the biggest issues with investors is not understanding basic accounting and finance concepts that would lead to massive insights and gained efficiency. Hope this helps!