How do you stay organized

[Matt Harris]

hi I have a question in regards to keeping organized as,a landlord with multiple properties financially and paperwork. How do you manage expenses and income and keep track of it all? Paper trails,creating good habits and all when it's a busy lifestyle. Thanks 

[Marcia Maynard]

Originally posted by @Account Closed:

I stay organized manually. I have a rent collection sheet that I mark off as each properties rent is paid for the month. I keep each of these sheets to total incomes at the end of the year.

I keep a folder for each property and put corresponding receipts and all invoices for each property in its folder and don't have to sort them all out at years end.

I know this seems like the caveman way to some but it works for me and I have 34 units. Very little time involved.

Ditto. That's what we do too. We have 16 residential rental units.

In addition, I keep an Appliance Notebook, which has a page for each unit on which I record information on the appliances. This covers: major kitchen appliances (range, range hood, refrigerator, dishwasher, garbage disposal), HVAC (furnace, zonal heaters, AC units), and water heater. Each appliance description includes: type, color (if important for decor), make, model, serial number, year of manufacture, date of installation.... also filter size for furnaces. In the front of the notebook I keep a Appliance Life Expectancy document, that gives the expected life expectancy for different types of appliances. This helps us anticipate when we will need to replace them. The notebook also includes information I've gathered over the years about how to maintain/repair appliances and an appliance maintenance log. I will soon add information about the plumbing fixtures and lighting fixtures too for each unit.

Our rent register is a paper columnar pad and has been for 20 years. Works for us! Easy to refer to and easy to view. I give the tenant a star if the rent is paid on or before the due date, a check mark if it's paid during the five day grace period in which we don't charge a late fee, and a circle if rent is not received by the end of the grace period. In the circle I will note the date we receive the late payment. I note the amount of rent paid and the amount of any late fee paid for each tenant, each month. We emphasize rent is due on the first and late on the second. The grace period is to take into account weekends and holidays, so the tenant is not charged a late fee if we receive the rent after the first, but not unreasonably late.

We set up a file for each tenant, using file folders with two fasteners. On one side we keep the application, tenant screening documents, and all correspondence. On the other side we keep the rental agreement contract, including the move-in property condition report, and a quick reference tenant information sheet. After a tenant vacates a unit, we move their file folder to archive storage. All tenant files and unit keys are kept in a secure area, locked.

We enter financial data from bank statements/check carbons, credit cards statements and mortgage statements into Quicken and print out financial reports for our tax professional as needed. Receipts are kept in notebooks/envelopes, by vendor/store and referred to when necessary as original supporting documentation. We differentiate expenditures per property or per unit in Quicken. Original documentation of property improvements and/or events that change the property value are kept in an envelope per property and archived with the Real-Estate Purchase Records.

We have 3-ring binder notebooks with pocket dividers for records such as Banking, Credit Cards, Mortgage, Insurance. These are kept on a shelf for the current year and are readily accessible. At the end of the current year, after filing our taxes, we archive the contents of those into Bankers Boxes, filed by year. We haven't purged after a reasonable time, as we intend to, but we are prepared to do so. :-) We keep our Real-Estate Purchase Records and Tax Records in Fire Rated File Boxes, and store those permanently.