Quickbooks or something else?

Question

Hi friends! What do you use for bookkeeping? I hear good things about quickbooks but I just want to make sure there's nothing better out there for real estate investors. I have multiple homes in multiple states all with different property managers and some I manage myself. A program that lets me link multiple bank accounts and perhaps keep them separate per property or LLC would be great. Just wanna see what's out there. Thanks!

Jeff Nash · Answer

I am a tax professional so I have always used QuickBooks Online as it’s relatively easy to navigate and you can set up classes for each property, customize the chart of accounts, and link bank accounts. It has tremendous market share relative to other platforms like Xero and Waves.

I recently demoed Azibo which is geared specifically for property management and it has what I would like and expect to see in reporting. It is a newcomer and there is no cost for the accounting feature. The risk is that is it is a newcomer, and will it be around in the years to come?

I expect you’ll get helpful feedback from others with a different perspective.

Markus Shobe · Answer

Quickbooks can definitely work. Every property would be setup as a class so that way reporting can be broken down between each property. You can link multiple bank accounts and credit cards in Quickbooks very easily.

Bill B. · Answer

If you have less than 20 or 30 properties, Quickbook’s little brother quicken is $50/year and it’s over kill. This is specially true if you plan to use a cpa for taxes and don’t plan to become an accounting master.

Ps. If you click on the magnifying glass in the upper corner you will see this is literally asked monthly if not weekly.

Cliff Benner · Answer

I use Wave for my single rental, and an easy start up company for Bookkeeping clients I have. It is the minimum I Say one should have for their Bookkeeping. You can connect bank and credit card accounts and pull decent reports while keeping track of your finances better then Excel.

I heard Azibo is good for Real Estate, I have it on my checklist to review and I might throw my Rental on their if it is easier for real estate and splitting up overhead costs between properties.

I lean towards QBO for as much as I can though, its convenient, decent pricing, and can integrate to a lot of apps.

Chris Seveney · Answer

Great post here from Nathan

Favorite bookkeeping software? (biggerpockets.com)

Tommy Parker · Answer

I use Innago and have Quickbooks integrated for more detailed accounting. I love it!

Simon W. · Answer

@Marissa Contreras something else...

Seriously though, something else. QBO is pricey for what it does and it's not even made for real estate. You can make it work, but plenty of other PM software with accounting module would beat out QBO.

Only thing good about QBO is inviting your CPA to do taxes.

If you plan to grow big and expand your real estate business, QBO will quickly be irrelevant to use. Do a quick search in BP and you will see this topic gets asked about 10+ time a day everyday.

Sean O'Keefe · Answer

@Marissa Contreras Quickbooks Online focuses on helping real estate investors manage accounting and bookkeeping. There are a lot of options for full-blown property management software that have an accounting modal (some mentioned above, like Buildium, Doorloop, RentRedi, etc to name a few). Great options if you are looking for full-blown property management options.

If you have multiple rentals you'll need the version of Quickbooks Online with "classes" ($85 per month to @Simon W. point) to allocate the income and expenses between different properties and their chart of accounts (list of income and expense types) doesn't come setup out of the box for real estate.

For real estate-focused "accounting & tax software" I'd recommend Stessa (Free to start) and Digb.com ($1 a month to start) and Quicken is also a cheap option like @Bill Brandt mention. Both compete with Quickbooks Online but are focused on solving the accounting and taxes problem for real estate investors unlike some of the other options mentioned here.

Basit Siddiqi · Answer

Quickbooks and most accounting softwares can do what you are looking for.

I personally prefer Quickbooks desktop as its the cheapest but they are now phasing people to the online platform which can be costly.

Quickbooks or something else?

Quickbooks or something else?

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