I have three LLCs with SFH rentals in different states. One has a PM, and I self-manage the other two.
What is your exact LLC banking and bookkeeping setup? Have you found a high-yield LLC savings account that can receive rent and pay mortgages and other expenses? Which PM and bookkeeping software do you use?
I’d love to hear how you’ve structured rent collection, expense payments, and tracking owner contributions and distributions. Thanks for sharing your experience!
@Magda Rose - I have a different checking account for each property and all payments (rent, utilities, etc...) go through that account as well as any income (rent). I typically download the activity and that serves as a good baseline to put together the end of year P&L for that property. For any additional reserves from each account I typically put into "one pot" into a savings/money market account. I do use an online software (Hemlane) to manage patient inquiries and host a portal for the tenants to access. Hope this helps!
Greg's one-account-per-property setup is what I'd copy too. On your contributions and distributions question: my partner has several entities, and money moving between personal accounts and the companies was where the books got messy. What fixed it was booking every transfer on both sides the same day and labeling it as a contribution or a distribution, not just "transfer." Then each LLC reconciles to its own bank statement once a month. At tax time the totals are already there instead of getting rebuilt from twelve statements. Do the three LLCs sit under a holding company, or do you own each one directly?
Greg and Noah covered the practical banking setup really well. I'd add one thing from the tax side: with three LLCs in different states, I'd make sure your banking and bookkeeping structure makes it easy to track each LLC separately from both an accounting and tax perspective.
I'd want each LLC to be easy to reconcile, with owner contributions, distributions, and transfers clearly labeled rather than just showing up as "transfers." That becomes especially important when you have multiple entities and state filings. For the reserves, I'd also keep the funds clearly attributable to the appropriate LLC even if you're using a separate savings or money-market account.
The goal is to have everything organized throughout the year, so tax time is about reviewing clean records rather than reconstructing three LLCs from a year's worth of bank statements.
Feel free to DM me I’d be happy to send over a few resources that might be helpful.