Business bookeeping for real estate investing

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Tax, SDIRAs & Cost Segregation
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Business bookeeping for real estate investing

Emily R.
Investor · Philadelphia, PA · Member since 2019 · 9 posts · 8 votes

I want to organize my business books better to be able to quickly apply for loans, LOC, share with an accountant, file taxes, etc. I have 1 property in my LLC and I'm about to buy 1 more within it. Both will be managed by my PM who uses Buildium. I want to be able to pull statements quickly for my LLC that looks similar to the one I get from Buildium for my business that includes my mortgage, insurance, repairs to property (that happen before I hand them off to the PM), rental license fees, general business expenses like for my virtual mailbox & registered agent, etc. I essentially want to be able to marry the data easily from Buildium to quickly so I get a full financial view of my business. Would QuickBooks be my best bet or is there something else that would fit my needs better?

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Jake BakerBusiness Member
Flipper/Rehabber · San Diego, CA · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 696 votes
1y

@Emily R.

I use QuickBooks Online (QBO) for my flipping business, rental businesses, and bookkeeping clients. Many on the forums will advise against QBO. It can feel like feature overload. The main reason is that it is not initially set up for a Real Estate business like other “real estate-specific” accounting software. It takes a certain level of QB knowledge to set it up correctly. 

My Recommendation: Spreadsheets are usually fine for your first 1-3 properties. 3+ properties, you should use software. If you plan to scale at all, I recommend QBO. If you do not like bookkeeping/accounting/technology, hire a bookkeeper specializing in real estate investors. 

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  • Jason Taken
    Lender · Chicago, IL · Member since 2021 · 424 posts · 145 votes
    1y
    Quote from @Emily R.:

    I want to organize my business books better to be able to quickly apply for loans, LOC, share with an accountant, file taxes, etc. I have 1 property in my LLC and I'm about to buy 1 more within it. Both will be managed by my PM who uses Buildium. I want to be able to pull statements quickly for my LLC that looks similar to the one I get from Buildium for my business that includes my mortgage, insurance, repairs to property (that happen before I hand them off to the PM), rental license fees, general business expenses like for my virtual mailbox & registered agent, etc. I essentially want to be able to marry the data easily from Buildium to quickly so I get a full financial view of my business. Would QuickBooks be my best bet or is there something else that would fit my needs better?


    I'm biased - but I hated Quickbooks. It was too many clicks and too much manual work for reconciling. I actually shifted over to something custom with chatgpt/claude for reconciliation, and over time, it learned what expenses were what and have made monthly/quartlerly and yearly books way easier for me. To each their own though.

    1Reply
  • Simon W.Business Member
    Real Estate Consultant · Lehigh Valley PA & New York City · Member since 2013 · 1k+ posts · 676 votes
    1y
    Quote from @Emily R.:

    I want to organize my business books better to be able to quickly apply for loans, LOC, share with an accountant, file taxes, etc. I have 1 property in my LLC and I'm about to buy 1 more within it. Both will be managed by my PM who uses Buildium. I want to be able to pull statements quickly for my LLC that looks similar to the one I get from Buildium for my business that includes my mortgage, insurance, repairs to property (that happen before I hand them off to the PM), rental license fees, general business expenses like for my virtual mailbox & registered agent, etc. I essentially want to be able to marry the data easily from Buildium to quickly so I get a full financial view of my business. Would QuickBooks be my best bet or is there something else that would fit my needs better?


     Buildium won't sync with QB so it doesn't really matter. QB will work as long as the person entering the data correctly. Also, syncing the bank feeds to your banks and credit card would be where you need to figure out. QB handles pretty much all types of bank & credit card sync. Other platforms such as Xero is a hit or miss.

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  • Josh L.
    USA · Member since 2023 · 145 posts · 84 votes
    1y

    @Emily R. Thanks for sharing. QuickBooks would be a good solution as it can serve as the hub for the bank account activity you mentioned. The only tedious/manual piece is getting the PM info into QuickBooks so you have the full set of data each month and are ready for tax time. Once you have a process in place and the right accounts tagged (and use “Classes” to differentiate each property), it should be pretty straightforward with just two properties.

    One option is booking the PM data on a one-month lag depending on when you get their reports. For example, once September closes for your bank activity (ie just this week), you would layer in the August data that your PM company closed the prior month. This is all just one option depending on PM timing / and your preference, but I agree you definitely want one consolidated source of truth.

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  • Jason MalabuteBusiness Member
    Accountant · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 907 votes
    1y

    Emily, QuickBooks would be a great fit for what you're trying to do. It's built to handle exactly the kind of real estate bookkeeping you're describing — pulling together rental income, mortgage, insurance, repairs, license fees, and general business expenses into one place. The big benefit is flexibility: you can set up your LLC as its own company file and track all properties within it, while still keeping financials organized in a way that lenders and accountants like to see.

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  • Max Emory
    Accountant · 100% Remote · Member since 2019 · 497 posts · 216 votes
    1y

    Hey @Emily R., our bookkeeping firm (specializes in REI) uses QuickBooks Online (QBO) for this exactly like you said. 100% of our clients are REIs and 100% of them are on QBO.

    Regardless of all the other places they keep property data, we merge everything into QBO so they can see financials for their business(es) as a whole, the entity-level, and the property-level. Even the door-level if they want.

    The only thing about QBO is you usually need someone who is a bookkeeper and knows how to customize and maintain the software for REI since it's not built specifically for REI.

    But, we love using QBO for our clients and have a great system for how we get them everything they need.

    Hope this helps. Happy to answer questions.

    - Time Capital Bookkeeping (REI since 2019)

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  • Jake BakerBusiness Member
    Flipper/Rehabber · San Diego, CA · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 696 votes
    1y

    @Emily R.

    I use QuickBooks Online (QBO) for my flipping business, rental businesses, and bookkeeping clients. Many on the forums will advise against QBO. It can feel like feature overload. The main reason is that it is not initially set up for a Real Estate business like other “real estate-specific” accounting software. It takes a certain level of QB knowledge to set it up correctly. 

    My Recommendation: Spreadsheets are usually fine for your first 1-3 properties. 3+ properties, you should use software. If you plan to scale at all, I recommend QBO. If you do not like bookkeeping/accounting/technology, hire a bookkeeper specializing in real estate investors. 

    [email protected]
    BookkeepingRE - Bookkeeping for Real Estate & Service-Based Businesses52 Reviews
    WebsiteView Page
    2Reply
    • Kp W.Pro Member
      Investor · Chattanooga, TN · Member since 2021 · 32 posts · 14 votes
      1y

      @Jake Baker I agree. I prefer Xero over Quickbooks since it's slightly cheaper and typically offers a little more in each service tier.

      0Reply
  • Markus Shobe
    Accountant · Indianapolis, IN · Member since 2019 · 247 posts · 135 votes
    1y

    Quickbooks can definitely work for you. It just needs to be setup the right way. It's pretty easy to connect your bank and credit card accounts to Quickbooks. 

    0Reply
  • William WhitleyBusiness Member
    Accountant · TN · Member since 2025 · 146 posts · 92 votes
    1y

    All of my clients use QuickBooks Online (QBO), and most of them are real estate investors or builders. QBO Plus or Advanced works great for this setup — you can use Classes to track each property and Locations if you ever have multiple entities under one account. That makes it easy to see performance by property or by entity without juggling spreadsheets.

    Once everything is organized properly in QBO, pulling reports for lenders or your CPA is relatively simple.

    When your books are set up clearly, tax time and lender requests become less stressful — and you get a much better picture of how your properties and portfolio are really doing.

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  • Jason MalabuteBusiness Member
    Accountant · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 907 votes
    1y

    I've used both QuickBooks for my own rental properties and Buildium for multi-family clients I've worked with. QuickBooks is a great fit if you want full financial visibility for your LLC—it tracks income, expenses, mortgage, and insurance easily, and keeps your books clean so tax filing and loan applications are much simpler.

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  • Aaron ZimmermanBusiness Member
    Accountant · Chicago, IL · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    1y
    I like quickbooks a lot. When you have one property, it is definitely easier. When going from one to two properties, you’ll want to add classes. You’ll need to code expenses by class (property). I would still say quickbooks is your best bet for this
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  • Matthew Thornton
    Member since 2025 · 104 posts · 37 votes
    1y

    I like Stessa has an Investor..

    0Reply
  • Basit SiddiqiBusiness Member
    Accountant · New York, NY · Member since 2015 · 8k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    1y

    Quickbooks can get it done but I think a lot of real estate investors are moving over to REIHUB

    Quickbooks Online(if you use the plus version) can be costly at around $90 a month.

    [email protected]917-280-8544
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  • Ashish AcharyaBusiness Member
    CPA, CFP®, PFS · FL · Member since 2017 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    11mo

    hi @Emily R.,

    I'm a little late to the party here, but I wanted to share my two cents because this is a great question. I’ve worked with a lot of investors and most are actually notorious for having messy books (not saying yours are), but as an investor myself I totally get how easy it is for things to get crazy.

    Like many others have mentioned, QuickBooks works really well for organizing everything, mortgage, insurance, repairs, licenses, and general business expenses. It's especially helpful if you want to pull statements that give you a clear financial snapshot of your LLC, which is exactly what you're looking for.

    However, I’d also highly recommend working with a bookkeeper who’s familiar with real estate and who your CPA trusts or maybe even your CPA firm if they have this service. They can help you set everything up properly from the start, make sure your Buildium data flows in smoothly, and keep your books in a way that makes loan applications, tax filings, and sharing with your accountant much easier.

    Bookkeeping can be a lot for real estate investors to do by themselves, but getting it right early on can save you tons of headaches and even deductions you might be missing down the road.

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  • Fulton Abraham Sanchez
    CPA| New Clients Welcome| 50 States · Member since 2016 · 440 posts · 94 votes
    11mo

    @Emily R., hi. Yes, QuickBooks Online for owner-level books + your PM’s Buildium for tenant/operations is the best combo.

    QBO structure: use Locations = each property; Classes = Owner vs PM activity.

    Chart of accounts mapping: mirror Buildium’s categories (rent, repairs, utilities, fees) so imports line up 1:1.

    Monthly workflow: export Buildium GL/owner statement → import to QBO (journal or detail) and tag to the right Location.

    Keep these in QBO (not Buildium): mortgages/escrows, insurance, pre-PM repairs, licenses, mailbox/RA, general overhead.

    Bank feeds & rules: auto-tag recurring spends; reconcile monthly.

    Outputs for lenders/accountant: P&L by Property (Location), Balance Sheet, Cash Flow, Debt Schedule, and a Schedule-E pack.

    0Reply
  • Rohullah Sharifi
    Dr · VA · Member since 2025 · 154 posts · 34 votes
    11mo

    The appropriate accounting system depends on the size and complexity of the business. For smaller operations that are well managed, even a properly maintained Excel spreadsheet can be sufficient for tracking income and expenses. However, for growing businesses or those with higher transaction volume, using accounting software such as QuickBooks can provide a more efficient and organized way to manage financial records.

    0Reply
  • Kp W.Pro Member
    Investor · Chattanooga, TN · Member since 2021 · 32 posts · 14 votes
    11mo

    I use Xero for our investment and businesss. I've used Quickbooks Online (QBO) in the past, and had issues that their customer service never could fix. It kept me locked out of my account for 2 -3 weeks. So, I've been with Xero ever since. They have more flexibility for a similar QBO subscription and good reporting. I'd be happy to give more info if you'd like. Take care!

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