What is the biggest disadvantage of using QuickBooks for rentals?

[Logan Ransley]

Quickbooks seems to be a very popular tool for tracking income and expenses, however, before I commit to Quickbooks... in your opinion, what is the biggest disadvantage of using QuickBooks for rental properties?

[Soh Tanaka]

I've been using QuickBooks for years, and I have no plan to change as of now. The disadvantage will depend on you, so I'll mention a few here.

• It wasn't necessarily designed for rental property owners, so there will be some learning curve. The good news is resources are plentiful.
• Usually when rental property owners think of "profit," they think of Rent- Mortgage Payment - Expense = Profit. If you enter all the numbers to QuickBooks the right way, then the principal payment and the escrow payment are not considered an expense, so your profit will be Rent - Interest - Expense = Profit.
• QuickBooks probably won't enough to keep track of everything. You probably will end up tracking some of the numbers in Excel (or other software.)
• Most of us do bookkeeping at an office/home, not necessary when we are out, so this is probably a minor issue, but if you buy QuickBooks Desktop version, then you can only enter/view from where the computer is (unless you set up some type of remote access.) If you subscribe to the online version, the cost will be WAY more expensive.