Accounting and Project Tracking?

[Victor Steffen]

Hello All,

How do you keep track of expenses for each of your properties? I'm paying utilites for some units, other unit's utilities are paid by tenants. Some units I need to pay trash, others are in communities with free trash pick up. Some units have the tenants covering maintenance and landscaping, and I'm hiring a crew to care for other properties. Also- several units are at different stages in their rehab or have fixes that need to be completed. 

How do you keep everything straight?? I am worried that a bill will fall through the cracks and one of my units will have their water turned off or a faulty floorboard will go unfixed for months or something similar.

What systems do you use to track expenses and "status" of each unit?

Thank you! 

[Jim Goebel]

@Victor Steffen

A few things.

A nice division of labor for who does what and responsibilities helps.  In the case of my wife/I she seems to naturally handle a bit more of the admin work and does a good job with this.  Have the conversations needed to make sure that's the case.

The next thing is getting some software to help.

In our case, we use Mint.com and we can see all of our transaction history.  Especially when establishing systems initially, it's very helpful to go through those transactions on a weekly basis, maybe even more.

The other software piece that we really like is Monday.com which although is not specifically tailored towards the rental market, is effective in managing work.  You can break apart tasks for stuff like paying bills there to ensure you have something to work through and things aren't forgotten.

The last piece is to get familiar with the utilities and their interfaces - at least around here - many have landlord type agreements and dashboards that let you see the status of everything.  Get that configured with bookmarks and be religious about checking in.

Good luck