Which tech works best?

[Duane Ward]

My wife and I are a few weeks away from closing on our first investment property. I have used various software in my other businesses with quick books self employed being the most recent one. I like many things about it, however to me, its better for overall money tracking not specifying details of multiple streams of income like various properties, etc. I'm wondering if there's a better one for this particular venture of real estate investment. One that I can do overall tracking, but it also allows me to break out the details if individual properties so I can track multiple rents, etc. One that I can track expenses from the various tenants, etc. Is my best bet to build my own that does everything I want it to or there one people generally use?

[Mohammed Rahman]

Hey @Duane Ward! Congrats on getting close to the finish line, exciting for both you and your wife :) 

I've used Cozy which was recently bought by Apartments.com (their landlord software is free if you're just starting out and can also handle listing vacancies, collecting rents, etc.)

One mistake I learnt the hard way: in NYS you *cannot* require your tenant to pay you electronically. So if your tenant does not want to sign up for the auto rent debit offered via Apartments.com (or any other tool), then you'll have to stick with depositing paper checks. 

Good luck and congrats again, welcome officially to the world of REI.

[Mary Smith]

@Duane Ward Congratulations on your first investment property! We've been using Innago from the start they have all the features to help us track our rental business, including income and expense info. I would recommend that you sign up for a few free softwares to see what would be a good fit for you and your rental business. 

[Mike Smith]

@Duane Ward A similar question was asked on BP about a week ago.  Many replies, myself included, believe that Quickbooks is your best option.  Especially in your case, as you are already familiar with it.  When you have more than one property, you use classes for each separate property.  This allows you create per property P&L statements, and also an overall P&L that "rolls up" all your properties together.

While Quickbooks is more complicated than some other options, if somewhat forces you to understand basic accounting principles.  It is imperative that you understand basic accounting because accounting reports are the scoreboard of owning a business.  In my opinion, many entrepreneurs never learn accounting basics and only using accounting for tax purposes, which is a horrible mistake.