Updated almost 4 years ago on . Most recent reply
Short Term Rental Accounting
I've been considering hiring an accountant to handle the accounting for my short-term rental properties. For those of you that have hired an accountant, was it worth it? Also when looking for someone to handle my bookkeeping, is there anything I should look for specifically?
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@Heather Whittaker I feel your pain! I have four STRs in FL (Fort Walton Beach) and up unit last year I used to manage 10 others. I don't manage for other people any more. I was stuck in that space where buying an accounting suite specific to STR was not cost-effective, so I used QuickBooks Pro and modified. I still do that for managing my personal rentals. Quickbooks is for day to day book-keeping. I don't know how many units you have, so I can tell what will be right for you. But for me, even if I buy a separate QB account for each of my properties, it's still cheaper than paying a book-keeper who is reasonably qualified. As for hiring a CPA firm to do your on-going book keeping, I don't thing anyone but very large management companies do that because of cost. So back to possibly getting a book-keeper.... Most book-keepers are not trained or familiar with STR type accounting specifics. So you will have to train them. So you still have to learn it and understand it. If you have sufficient # of unit to where the cost of hiring a book-keeper is worth it, then yes, get one. But do monthly audits and make sure you have checks and balances and you understand the books.
As for taxes, I use a CPA. I present her with the information from my STRs in a format we have both agreed. I have worked with her for a long time and she has educated herself on STR tax rules (different from regular rentals and considered commercial activity in FL). Still, I'm not very happy with her and I am actively looking for a CPA that does more vacation rental work in FL.
Regardless of what you do and who you hire, you will need to be able to understand the book-keeping software and to at least be audit their work monthly. I do my own QB monthly accounting. QB is not specifically set up for STR but there are various ways to set it up to where it works very well.
Good luck.