Curious what system folks are using (& enjoying) to track multiple properties
Specialist · Memphis, TN · Member since 2026 · 3 posts · 2 votes
Curious what system folks are using (& enjoying) to track multiple properties
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Denise SuppleeBusiness Member
Realtor · Willow Grove, PA · Member since 2017 · 970 posts · 638 votesHi @Niah Jamerson, Stessa is a solid option for the income, expense, and cash flow tracking you're describing. You could also check Rentredi I know they partner with biggerpockets so might be a good option.
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- 1moDenise SuppleeBusiness MemberRealtor · Willow Grove, PA · Member since 2017 · 970 posts · 638 votes
Hi @Niah Jamerson, Stessa is a solid option for the income, expense, and cash flow tracking you're describing. You could also check Rentredi I know they partner with biggerpockets so might be a good option.
Spark Rental Co-Investing Club577 Reviews - online · Member since 2026 · 99 posts · 44 votes1mo
Stessa and Rentredi are solid for the expense/income/cash flow side Denise mentioned. Worth flagging though, neither one actually solves the "planned vs actual repair spend" part you're describing, they'll show you what you spent, not tell you what you should be setting aside in the first place.
That planning number is usually the harder piece anyway. A flat percentage of rent doesn't account for what's actually aging in each property, so I ended up tracking install dates against expected lifespan per system to get a real monthly target instead of a guess. Doesn't replace Stessa for the day-to-day tracking, it's just the piece that handles the "what should I be budgeting" question before the spending even happens.
- Kansas City · Member since 2024 · 13 posts · 0 votes4w
Quote from @Giuseppe Cavucci:
Stessa and Rentredi are solid for the expense/income/cash flow side Denise mentioned. Worth flagging though, neither one actually solves the "planned vs actual repair spend" part you're describing, they'll show you what you spent, not tell you what you should be setting aside in the first place.
That planning number is usually the harder piece anyway. A flat percentage of rent doesn't account for what's actually aging in each property, so I ended up tracking install dates against expected lifespan per system to get a real monthly target instead of a guess. Doesn't replace Stessa for the day-to-day tracking, it's just the piece that handles the "what should I be budgeting" question before the spending even happens.
Does Stessa, RentRedi, and similar property management products roll up to show portfolio level performance?
- Specialist · Memphis, TN · Member since 2026 · 3 posts · 2 votes1mo
Yeah, I thought I might be asking for a lot re: planning. I'll check out Stessa & manage my expectations. Thanks for the suggestions!
- 1moAndrew FreedBusiness MemberInvestor · Worcester, MA · Member since 2020 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
@Niah Jamerson - Good questions! We utilize appfolio and run our accounting, budgeting property mangement, and work orders through it. It has been incredibly helpful given the size of our portfolio, over 500 rental units. You do need a bookkeeper to reconcile and keep all of our profit and loss up to date to be able to utilize it for advanced budgeting and projections. But that is the case with any system.
Additionally, we utilize Trello for project management and keeping our team on the same page.
Nonetheless, I recommend you find a property management software that can do accounting and that should solve alot of these issues. Buildium might be a good option for a smaller operator. Additionally, having a third party bookkeeping to reconcile charges and pull statements will reduce the administrative burden is needed as well.
- Investor · Charleston, SC · Member since 2018 · 195 posts · 82 votes1mo
For a few doors, I would split this into 3 buckets before choosing anything.
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Monthly money: income, expenses, mortgage, reserves, and cash flow by property.
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Repair history: what broke, who did it, invoice, photo, and warranty or useful life.
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Forward reserve: the big items by property, estimated replacement year, and monthly reserve target.
The mistake I made early was mixing repair history and repair budgeting in the same column. Actual spend tells you what happened. The reserve schedule tells you what is coming.
If Excel is still working, I would keep it until you know which of those 3 buckets is causing the most manual work, then replace that part first.
- Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes1moRight here. We were well over 10 properties before I even began thinking about using a dedicated software. If you set up your Excel (or Google Sheets, which works about equally well) spreadsheet tabs on the front end, you literally have to do nothing but make copies, rename them for the specific property. My spread sheets mirrored my Schedule E attachments, so when tax time comes you are just carrying over.
Quote from @Eduardo Cavasotti:
For a few doors, I would split this into 3 buckets before choosing anything.
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Monthly money: income, expenses, mortgage, reserves, and cash flow by property.
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Repair history: what broke, who did it, invoice, photo, and warranty or useful life.
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Forward reserve: the big items by property, estimated replacement year, and monthly reserve target.
The mistake I made early was mixing repair history and repair budgeting in the same column. Actual spend tells you what happened. The reserve schedule tells you what is coming.
If Excel is still working, I would keep it until you know which of those 3 buckets is causing the most manual work, then replace that part first.
Don't make it more complicated than it has to be, nor more expensive. Also, over many years of doing this, some of your categories aren't particularly useful as a planning tool. I don't particularly care about cash flow by month, for example, as there are a lot of things that can make that look wonky during the year - prepaying all of your insurance or property taxes, for example. A large one-time capital expense like a roof. A one-month vacancy between tenants. You should be tracking these things over the course of a year so you can make good educated decisions on how profitable (or not) a property is. As for budgeting for repairs, with only a couple of properties you should know in your head how much anticipated time you've got left for your roof, HVAC, water heater, flooring, and plan accordingly. This isn't to say that setting an anticipated repair budget isn't worthwhile, but in general your repair costs are going to be directly correlated to how well you've renovated & maintained the property. I'm closer to retirement so not doing much active buying these days, but back when I was every property got a full assessment and all major cost items that were marginal were accounted for in the purchase and replaced on the front end, leaving future year repair costs pretty minimal. If you're buying tired properties and hoping to just limp them along then your repair costs are likely to be much higher.
Anyway, the point of it all is: don't be too enamored of shiny nickels. At the beginning of this your primary goal should be maximum profitability, and anything you buy/rent/lease that doesn't increase your profitability is a liability.
Skyline Properties -
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- 1moAaron WeikleBusiness MemberMember since 2026 · 76 posts · 23 votes
This is exactly where Excel stops earning its keep. Once you're reconciling bank feeds manually and cross-referencing repair receipts from a separate folder, you're doing double the bookkeeping. A few things worth thinking through before picking anything is that bank feed integration is the real time saver, not the software itself. Whatever you end up choosing, you should confirm it pulls transactions automatically and lets you set rules to categorize recurring items like property management fees for example so you're just reviewing it. That way if you ever need to pull 5-year and 15-year personal property for bonus depreciation on Form 4562, having repairs logged as "repairs vs. improvements" from day one saves a lot of cleanup at tax time. Budgeted vs. actual per property is less common than you'd think. Most tools handle actuals fine but treat budgeting like an afterthought. It’s worth testing that specific feature in any trial period rather than assuming it works the way you'd want it to.
- 1moEd BaronePro MemberSaratoga Springs, NY · Member since 2018 · 109 posts · 56 votes
Hi Niah,
@Denise Supplee, thanks for mentioning RentRedi!As one of the co-founders of RentRedi, I wanted to clarify a couple of things for @Niah. RentRedi already tracks profit & loss by property, lets you track expenses, and even allows you to attach expenses directly to completed maintenance requests—those expenses automatically flow into your property's P&L, so everything stays connected.
The part that really caught my attention was your question about planning for repairs that haven't happened yet. That's actually a feature we're rolling out to all RentRedi users next week. It lets landlords create and track upcoming projects, estimate costs, and save toward them over time, so you can manage both planned and actual repair spending in one place.
A fun behind-the-scenes note: the feature was actually inspired by our Head of Growth, Kelly, who owns rental properties herself and wanted exactly this capability. We thought it solved a real problem, so we built it.
I think it'll address the exact gap you described between "what I plan to spend" and "what I actually spent."
Hope to see you at BPCON in Orlando,
Ed - 1moAaron ZimmermanBusiness MemberAccountant · Chicago, IL · Member since 2018 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votesI use spreadsheets as I have two properties. Once you get beyond 3-5, I’d get qbo
Brick House CPAs53 Reviews - Real Estate Agent · Memphis · Member since 2026 · 545 posts · 315 votes1mo
We've found the "best" system is usually the one your team will actually use consistently. Features are great, but if maintenance, inspections, communications and financials all end up living in different places, things start slipping through the cracks.
Stessa can be a good fit if your main goal is tracking financial performance. If you're self-managing, I'd also think about how you'll track maintenance history and recurring tasks as your portfolio grows. Having a complete record of repairs has saved us more than once when budgeting for future capital improvements or troubleshooting repeat issues.
- Property Manager · Houston · Member since 2026 · 30 posts · 16 votes1mo
Hi Niah, I think you’re at the point a lot of investors eventually hit—Excel works great until maintaining the spreadsheet becomes another job in itself.
One thing I’d consider beyond just income and expense tracking is how well whatever platform you choose can grow with your portfolio. Repairs/maintenance history, documentation, reporting, and being able to quickly see what’s happening at the property level become increasingly important as you add doors.
I’m with Emerson Property Management here in Houston, and managing properties at scale has definitely shown me how valuable it is to have those systems centralized rather than pieced together across different places.
I’d be curious to hear what you end up choosing and what ultimately gets you away from Excel!
- Sacramento · Member since 2026 · 10 posts · 1 vote1mo
Disclosure since it's relevant: I'm building in this space (SmartLeaseFlow), which is exactly why I'm not pitching you. I do the bank feed and per-property Schedule E side, but I don't have repair budgeting either, and my expense reporting is single-period rather than month over month. You'd hit the same wall.
One question if you're up for it: when you go digging for a repair later, what are you actually trying to answer — is it under warranty, is this the same thing breaking again, or what have I sunk into this unit this year? I've heard all three and they'd each need something different built.
- Kansas City · Member since 2024 · 13 posts · 0 votes4w
Quote from @Anthony Njoroge:
Disclosure since it's relevant: I'm building in this space (SmartLeaseFlow), which is exactly why I'm not pitching you. I do the bank feed and per-property Schedule E side, but I don't have repair budgeting either, and my expense reporting is single-period rather than month over month. You'd hit the same wall.
One question if you're up for it: when you go digging for a repair later, what are you actually trying to answer — is it under warranty, is this the same thing breaking again, or what have I sunk into this unit this year? I've heard all three and they'd each need something different built.
Interesting system; what are the primarily workflow pain points you're solving for?
- Accountant · Hilton Head Island SC · Member since 2026 · 2 posts · 0 votes1mo
Unless you just enjoy doing it, you might consider hiring a good bookkeeper, specializing in rental property accounting. Work out with them exactly what you want (e.g. segregation of everything by client should be a given through the right bookkeeper), and let them develop it for you and discuss it with you regularly.
Such a bookkeeper usually pays for itself with 2 or more rentals.
- 1moAshish AcharyaBusiness MemberCPA, CFP®, PFS · FL · Member since 2017 · 5k+ posts · 3k+ votes
Niah, with a few properties, I’d probably avoid building something too complicated. The best system is the one you’ll actually keep updated every month.
Since Excel is starting to feel manual, I'd look for something that can pull transactions from your bank and credit card, let you see income and expenses by property, and still give you a clean monthly cash-flow view. I'd also want repairs and larger CapEx items tracked separately so you can compare what you planned to spend with what actually happened.
If you’re already considering Stessa, I’d test it with one property before moving everything over. The biggest thing I’d watch is whether it saves you time at month-end and gives you reports that are useful both for managing the portfolio and for your CPA.
From the tax side, keeping repairs, improvements, tenant deposits, mileage, and property-specific expenses categorized correctly becomes more important as the portfolio grows. A clean system now can save a lot of cleanup later.
Happy to connect!
INVESTOR FRIENDLY CPA®5241 Reviews - Investor · Charleston, SC · Member since 2018 · 195 posts · 82 votes1mo
That is fair, JD. I would not pay for software until the owner can name the job it replaces. My cutoff is when the monthly close starts requiring bank deposits, repair receipts, and property tabs just to know what changed.
- 1moLindsay DavisBusiness MemberReal Estate Broker · Birmingham, AL · Member since 2019 · 322 posts · 200 votes
I’m familiar with some of the tools listed here and have heard great things! Our property management team uses AppFolio, which has been really helpful as our team and volume have grown. I know that may not be the right jump for everyone, especially if you’re self-managing.
For us, the biggest value has been workflow. It’s not just having a place to store information. It’s being able to move the work faster because the right task gets to the right person at the right time.
Maintenance, leasing, accounting, renewals, owner communication, etc. all need different actions, and delays usually happen in the handoff between those actions.
When you’re managing volume, workflow is what creates pace. Even if you’re not ready for a platform like AppFolio, I’d still think about your system that way: does it just track information, or does it help the work keep moving quickly?
Spartan Invest4.8134 Reviews - Lender · NJ · Member since 2025 · 50 posts · 23 votes1mo
I’ve seen a lot of investors move away from Excel once they get past a few properties, mainly because keeping income, expenses and repairs organized manually gets tedious.
I’d prioritize something that gives you property level P&Ls and expense tracking, then handles repair/work order tracking separately. That makes it much easier to compare actual vs budgeted expenses at the property level.
- Investor · Pacific Northwest · Member since 2026 · 531 posts · 298 votes4w
I think the mistake is assuming one piece of software needs to do all of this well. With a small portfolio, I’d separate the jobs before replacing Excel. Bookkeeping, maintenance history, and future capital planning are related, but they’re not really the same problem.
For the money side, the biggest upgrade from Excel is bank feeds and rules. Once transactions are arriving automatically and recurring items are categorized correctly, you’ve eliminated most of the annoying manual work.
Whether that ends up being Stessa, Baselane, QuickBooks, or something else matters less to me than whether I can reconcile the accounts cleanly and get a believable P&L by property.
Maintenance is where I’d be pickier. I don’t just want to know that I spent $1,300 on HVAC last year. I want to know which unit, what failed, who repaired it, whether there’s a warranty, whether this is the third time the same system has needed work, and what the next likely replacement is. That turns maintenance history into operating intelligence instead of just another expense category.
Then I’d keep a separate forward-looking capital schedule. Roof age, HVAC age, water heaters, major appliances, exterior work, whatever actually matters for your properties. Actual spending tells you what happened. The capital schedule tells you what is probably coming. I wouldn’t force those into the same bucket just because a software vendor says it has “budgeting.”
The other thing I’d test before moving anything is how easy it is to get your data back out. A lot of software feels great until you want five years of property-level history, receipts, vendor records, and transaction detail in a usable export. I wouldn’t build my entire operating history inside a system that effectively owns the exit door.
If you only have a few properties, I’d probably choose the smallest system that removes the manual transaction entry and keeps the financial records clean, then keep the property-condition/capital planning layer simple until the portfolio actually demands more. There’s no prize for graduating from Excel into a $200/month platform before the complexity exists.
The test I’d use is pretty simple: can you answer, in under a minute, what each property made, what broke, what you spent fixing it, and what large expense is most likely coming next?
If the system can do that reliably, it’s probably good enough. If it gives you 47 dashboards but you still have to dig through email for the last plumber invoice, you just bought prettier chaos.
- 3wEd BaronePro MemberSaratoga Springs, NY · Member since 2018 · 109 posts · 56 votes
Hi Brett
Yes- RentRedi does roll up to show portfolio level performance. Full disclosure, I’m a cofounder of RentRedi.Our Portfolio Performance dashboard lets you view results for individual properties or roll them up across your entire portfolio. It tracks metrics including NOI, cash flow, cash-on-cash return, estimated equity, and performance trends over time. You can also generate property-specific or portfolio-wide P&L and Schedule E reports.
RentRedi is included with your BiggerPockets Pro membership. I’ll let someone from Stessa speak to its current capabilities.
Hope to see you at BPCON in Orlando!
- Kansas City · Member since 2024 · 13 posts · 0 votes3w
Quote from @Ed Barone:
Hi Brett
Yes- RentRedi does roll up to show portfolio level performance. Full disclosure, I’m a cofounder of RentRedi.Our Portfolio Performance dashboard lets you view results for individual properties or roll them up across your entire portfolio. It tracks metrics including NOI, cash flow, cash-on-cash return, estimated equity, and performance trends over time. You can also generate property-specific or portfolio-wide P&L and Schedule E reports.
RentRedi is included with your BiggerPockets Pro membership. I’ll let someone from Stessa speak to its current capabilities.
Hope to see you at BPCON in Orlando!
Thank for the reply, Ed.
- Member since 2025 · 1 post · 0 votes3w
Hi @Niah Jamerson.
I self-manage a few STRs too and hit the same wall with my own spreadsheet — got tired of manually rolling everything up every month. I ended up building my own tool.Core of it: income and expenses per property, broken into a monthly P&L automatically, plus cash flow after the mortgage and break-even occupancy so I can see at a glance whether a property's actually profitable. Repairs live in their own category instead of a separate tab, along with everything else — cleaning, utilities, PM fees, whatever categories you want, they're customizable. If you've run more than one property it switches between them or rolls them all up together, so you're not keeping a separate sheet per door. There's also a reservation log with a booking calendar that shows revenue by channel, which has been useful for me since I list on more than one platform and used to have no clean way to see which one's actually pulling its weight.
A couple things beyond the day-to-day tracking too: there's a deal analyzer for running the numbers on a potential purchase before you buy (cap rate, cash-on-cash), a what-if tool for stress-testing assumptions like occupancy or rate changes, and an hours/mileage log, which turned out to matter more than I expected once tax time came around and I wanted actual numbers instead of guessing. When you need something to hand off, it'll generate a clean P&L, a simplified tax summary, or a side-by-side report if you're comparing properties.
No bank sync, so you're still entering transactions (or bulk-importing via CSV) — it just keeps it all in one place instead of scattered across tabs, and reservations feed revenue in automatically so at least that side isn't manual. If zero manual entry is the goal, Stessa's bank feed will beat it. Planned-vs-actual repair budgeting — which you specifically mentioned — isn't built in yet either, that's next on my list since it's clearly a real gap.
Still figuring out whether to make it available more broadly — happy to send you an early look if you're interested, would genuinely value the feedback.
- Investor · Pacific Northwest · Member since 2026 · 531 posts · 298 votes3wExcel is honestly fine until the problem stops being the spreadsheet and starts being everything around it. What I’d want is one view per property showing income, expenses, cash flow, repairs, planned vs. actual repair spend, and the history behind those numbers — without creating another place I have to manually maintain. I’d also want the portfolio view above it so I can see which property actually needs my attention instead of opening five spreadsheets to figure it out. That’s the part I’d solve before worrying too much about which property-management software has the longest feature list. The best system is the one that removes work instead of giving you a prettier place to enter it.
- 3wRachid AbadliBusiness MemberInvestor · Sacramento, CA · Member since 2024 · 129 posts · 36 votes
This is the right distinction. The gap between “what did I spend” and “what should I be setting aside” is where most small landlords get blindsided.
I track install dates on every major system — HVAC, water heater, roof, appliances — against expected lifespan, and budget a monthly reserve per unit based on what’s actually aging. A 15-year-old water heater in Unit 2 needs a different reserve than a 3-year-old one in Unit 4.
The other piece Niah mentioned that’s worth flagging: the “digging for repair history later” problem.
Every time I get a maintenance call, I log the vendor, cost, what was done, and a photo. Six months later, when the same issue comes back, I have documentation that the tenant’s “it’s always been like this” claim doesn’t hold up.
That’s also the record you need if you’re ever deducting from a security deposit — in California, you need itemized receipts within 21 days or you forfeit the deduction entirely.
Excel works until it doesn’t. The “doesn’t” moment for me was when I needed to pull repair history, lease terms, and payment status for the same unit during a dispute, and they were in three different files.
LeaseBase.ai - Member since 2026 · 4 posts · 1 vote2w
Excel is genuinely fine until the manual entry itself becomes the bottleneck, and it sounds like that's where you are. Before picking a tool, I'd separate two things you listed, because they're not always in the same product: (1) automatic income/expense/cash-flow tracking per property, and (2) a place for planned vs. actual repair spend that lives next to it instead of in a separate spreadsheet.
A few things worth checking on any option you try, Stessa included: does it actually reduce data entry (bank feed or receipt capture) or just give you a nicer place to type the same numbers by hand, does the free tier cap the number of properties, and does it export something you can hand your CPA at tax time without reformatting it yourself. A lot of these tools look similar on the marketing page and differ a lot on those three points once you're actually using one.
The budgeted-vs-actual repair tracking you mentioned is the piece I'd push hardest on in a demo. It's the thing people usually bolt on later with a second spreadsheet, so if a tool genuinely has it built in alongside expense tracking, that's worth weighting heavily.
- Member since 2026 · 8 posts · 0 votes1w
I went spreadsheet to chaos to a much simpler spreadsheet before finding a rhythm. The thing that actually helped: separating what's owed this month from repair history into two dead-simple views instead of one mega-sheet trying to do both. Once maintenance costs and rent status live in the same row, it gets unreadable fast.
- 1wRachid AbadliBusiness MemberInvestor · Sacramento, CA · Member since 2024 · 129 posts · 36 votes
Great thread — the advice about separating concerns is the most important insight here.
Three different problems, three different tools (or at minimum three different views):
Monthly financials — income, expenses, cash flow per property. This is where QBO or Stessa shines once you're past 3–5 properties. Bank feed integration is the killer feature — eliminates manual entry.
Repair history — what broke, when, what it cost, who fixed it. This is really a maintenance log, not an accounting entry. You want timestamps, photos, vendor info. Mixing this into your P&L spreadsheet is where things get messy.
Capital reserves / forward planning — roof replacement in 3 years, HVAC in 5, etc. This is budgeting, not bookkeeping. Different mental model entirely.
The mistake most people make is trying to force all three into one tool. Some platforms do it well, most don't.
For the operational side (tenant-facing workflows — leases, rent collection, maintenance, screening), there are solid free options now that didn't exist a few years ago. Worth exploring before committing to $200/month platforms.
Best quote from this thread: “There's no prize for graduating from Excel into a $200/month platform before the complexity exists.” Amen.
LeaseBase.ai - Member since 2026 · 73 posts · 24 votes1d
I use Easy Rental Records for this. I self-manage and wanted something simpler than full property management software. I enter income and expenses by property, and it gives me P&Ls by property or for the full portfolio. It also has Budget vs. Actual, so I can see what I planned to spend compared with what I actually spent.
I can export the reports to Excel when I need them, without building the formulas myself.
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