How do you organize your portfolio finances?

Question

Does your entire portfolio go into 1 bank account? How do you know how much money is allocated in each property so as to not use up funds you saved up for rental A, to pay for rental B's expenses? How do you keep it all straight? Do you have everything mixed in with your personal finances?  I appreciate any advice.

My goal is to organize my portfolio finances so I can determine at a glance if I have enough money saved up for upgrades for a specific rental... or quickly determine if I did not allocate enough funds for maintenance for a specific property at the end of the year.

Bill Hampton · Answer

John,

I also recommend using Stessa dot com to track your income and expenses.

I also recommend that you hire a professional accountant to prepare your tax return. Real estate tax returns are usually too complicated for new investors.

Good luck and let me know if you have any questions.

Brian G. · Answer

@John Fider sole proprietor: one dedicated checking account for all business income and expenses, a saving account/s for Capex (one per property or one for all properties, whatever you prefer), transfer a % of gross revenue from each property into saving/s account regularly, Stessa for book keeping to track the income and expenses for each property. If doing business as an entity, or in a partnership, consult a CPA asap.

Tyler Bains · Answer

@John Fider I would HIGHLY recommend separate accounts.

First off you never ever want to co-mingle business and personal accounts and it makes your accountant’s life a nightmare to filter through all of the personal vs business expenses.

Second I would HIGHLY recommend you hire an actual CPA who works with investments. What do they like, recommend, or prefer? Go with that as ultimately they are the ones who need to know where income and expenses are coming from and going to.

I think it would be very tempting with 1-4 properties just thinking you can have 1 account and remember what came from where but I would suggest you follow what your accountant prefers so they can keep you tax liabilities as low as possible.

Zachary Ray · Answer

It really depends on how much business you are doing. A few rentals isn't hard to keep track of. Its still good practice to have separate bank accounts regardless if you have a business or not set up.

Matt Ziegler · Answer

John,

We have a small portfolio of rentals and manage them ourselves.

We use one operating account for the business and use quick books to identify which expense and income go with each property. This is easy to do.

We have another business account where we hold deposit monies so as not to mix them up.

We do not co-mingle business and personal funds ever!

If you are working with an accountant they can set up a chart of accounts for you and keep them all updated.

Hope this is helpful.

How do you organize your portfolio finances?

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