Investor · 30080 · Member since 2020 · 40 posts · 14 votes
I’m going to cross post this in a few places and to be clear, I am NOT talking about software or a bookkeeper that specializes at any of the following:
bookkeeping for taxes
rent roll and property management
property purchase assessment
renovation budgets and build management
traditional stock market investments
business management
personal finances
I am looking to take information from all of the above areas and create a holistic cash flow, net worth, short term and long-term automated projection of EVERYTHING all at once. So if you have COVID-19 shutdown or you are looking to buy a new property, you can see how this affects your entire financial big picture (not evaluate one financial silo at a time). The only way I know to do that is to dump info from the software above into a big ugly custom spreadsheet I’ve been using. It’s tedious and slow and I dread dealing with it.
What are you actually USING? Are we just stuck with spreadsheets to put it all together?
Accountant · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2018 · 81 posts · 21 votes
6y
@Benjamin Arritt I use QuickBooks Desktop. I currently keep separate files for my investment properties, but there are ways to aggregate all this into one personal file and use class tracking for each of your properties. The reporting capabilities are powerful and would probably give you what you need.
Accountant · Albuquerque, NM · Member since 2019 · 43 posts · 30 votes
6y
As long as everything is under the same tax ID, you could use QuickBooks. I would suggest using Plus and using Locations to separate REI from W-2 income from whatever else you have going on. You could then use classes for each property (or customers and sub-customers). QuickBooks Online has a great dashboard that shows cash position over time and even creates a projection.
If you're aggragating income/expenses from separate tax ID's or even LLC's, you can still do it, but it's problematic. Part of the IRS definition of "separate venture" is that is keeps separate books, so aggregating personal finances with LLC's could result in losing liability protection.
Investor · 30080 · Member since 2020 · 40 posts · 14 votes
6y
Tell me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge it does not aggregate with personal Charles Schwab investments, calculate projected net worth of REI and add that to your future net worth (or does it?). Quicken used to do some of this (I think) but it didn't integrate with QB. I've had difficulty with QB as a planning tool in that it is more geared toward paying taxes and is limited to running reports based on the implementation of tax classes.
Investor · 30080 · Member since 2020 · 40 posts · 14 votes
6y
Greg, Cara brought up my other problem. We have four LLCs plus a personal return. :-/ QB wasn't made for that, BUT if you have a way to aggregate everything into "one personal file", I'm all ears! :-)