What accounting software are you using for a small rental portfolio?

Question

Hey everyone, I have a couple of rental homes and I’m adding a few more over time.

These are not very expensive properties, so I’m trying to avoid paying a lot every month just for accounting software.

I mainly want something simple where I can track income and expenses by property, keep things organized for taxes, and ideally handle different properties or LLCs without needing a separate expensive subscription for each one.

What are you guys using today?

QuickBooks, Stessa, Baselane, spreadsheets, or something else?

Would especially love to hear from people managing a smaller portfolio who are trying to keep costs low.

Mackaylee Beach · Answer

INNAGO has proven to be an excellent platform for my daily activities. It is user-friendly and supports everything from marketing properties to managing monthly rent and handling work orders.

Aaron Weikle · Answer

Look into something that is built for rental portfolios and can handle multiple properties or LLCs under one account without charging per entity. Also make sure it can produce a property to property P&L without the manual gymnastics. Your CPA is gonna want income and expenses broken out by schedule E property instead of a lump sum. I would also think about depreciation tracking. Most tools ignore it entirely and leave you scrambling at tax time when you need numbers for form 4562. Even a simple acquisition cost log, date placed in service, and 27.5 year MACRS basis by property can save you the headache later on.

Mose Gebremeskel · Answer

I have a small portfolio and have been using Innago

Basit Siddiqi · Answer

I recommend people to look at REIHUB for their accounting needs.

Victor Rono · Answer

For a smaller portfolio, I’d first separate “accounting” from “property management.”

If you mainly need income and expense tracking by property, tax reports, and basic organization, Stessa, Baselane, or a well-structured spreadsheet may be enough. QuickBooks can be more than you need and may become expensive or complicated when multiple LLCs are involved.

Once you also need rent collection, tenant ledgers, maintenance tracking, communication, leases, and reporting connected in one place, that’s when a property-management platform starts making more sense.

Whichever direction you choose, I’d make sure it can separate activity by property, export clean reports, and accommodate multiple entities without requiring a completely separate subscription for each one.

Ashish Acharya · Answer

Sundeep, for a smaller rental portfolio, I would usually keep it simple first and only add complexity when the portfolio actually needs it.

A lot of smaller landlords do well with Stessa because it is built around rentals, lets you track income and expenses by property, and is usually easier to manage than a full bookkeeping system. If your main goal is staying organized for taxes and seeing performance by property, it is a solid starting point.

If you want more control and more traditional bookkeeping, QuickBooks can work well too, especially if you are managing multiple entities or want cleaner financials. It is just a little more hands on and usually takes more setup to do it right.

For very small portfolios, a spreadsheet plus a dedicated bank account and credit card can still work if you are disciplined. The biggest issue usually is not the software itself. It is whether the books are being kept consistently and whether repairs, CapEx, deposits, reimbursements, and property level expenses are being tracked correctly.

From the tax side, I would make sure whatever system you choose can clearly separate each property and each LLC, and also distinguish repairs vs improvements, because that can affect deductions and depreciation.

If it were me, I would probably start with Stessa for simplicity unless you already know you want fuller bookkeeping from day one.

Happy to connect!

Brian Asaro · Answer

We use Stessa.  We have six units (two properties) to manage.  Coupled with RentRedi, it's great!

Brian Asaro · Answer

I don't think there was a full accounting function when we started using it so we used Stessa in conjunction

Sundeep Babbar · Answer

hav you used rent redi's accounting?

Ryan Spath · Answer

This falls under the KISS (keep it super simple) We use rentredi for rent collection and it works just fine. When it comes to books, we have an excel sheet and a tab for each property that helps with tax time. Depending on what your long term goals are and how many properties you have this is more than sufficient in my experience. FOr context we have a dozen doors under management, this takes me all of 1 hour a month to reconcile. We do have a sperate account for all the rental monies and a card that is strictly for this business.

What accounting software are you using for a small rental portfolio?

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