All Forum Posts by: Sean O'Keefe

This question was already answered recently by Michael here 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/51/topics/1136752-expla...

DIY Cost Seg or KBKG ($500 - $1,000)

Engineering firm ($2,000 - $6,000)

Michaels post explains difference btwn DIY vs Engineering firm. 

Should you do one? That depends on your situation, what you want to get out of it, property type, how much you participate, if you plan ti sell soon and the nature of sale (e.g 1031), etc.

Lindy Peterson whether your STRs are in Grand Lake, CO, or Houston you can find knowledgeable Real Estate CPAs that understand tax treatment of STRs here in BPs Tax Professional Directory: https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/tax-partners

Cody Shepherd First, for your wife to qualify for Real Estate Professional Status (REPS) she would need to meet the IRS requirements to be considered one.

Next, you might find this post from John Malone on Common Questions on STR and REPS helpful (great post John).

Based on what you say, it's unlikely, but the details are important and what you've provided isn't enough. I'd suggest chatting with a tax professional for more clarify and they can help you nail down the facts

 Great, I just sent you link to sign-up. 

Here's an article breaking down bonus depreciation at a high level that you might find helpful. 
https://tax.thomsonreuters.com/en/glossary/bonus-depreciatio...

For bonus depreciation on improvements and renovation to rental properties (long-term and short-term) you'll find the section that will be most helpful in evaluating this is -> property placed into service must have a useful life of 20 years or less and be depreciated using the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System method. 

In addition to reading this article and doing research to evaluate the useful life of the different elements of your renovation/improvements I'd also get help from tax pro to make sure you don't claim bonus depreciation on things that aren't eligible.

 Which bank are you having difficulty syncing? I can send you the link for a free trial of Digb.com.

I haven't seen any of these bank sync issues and it's setup out of the box to support real estate, like Stessa.

My customers use Stessa, Digb, or Quickbooks.

Ashish Acharya Agree, provide you are married filing joint with your spouse.

As a CPA, I'd suggest not using Excel unless you are very organized and have a rental property dedicated bank account/credit card. If you're not super organized most CPAs will charge some kind of clean-up fee either explicitly or implicitly (and it would have been cheaper/easier just to get tracking software). If you go with software instead of Excel you still need to stay on top of it or hire someone to help with bookkeeping.

Also, @Michele Fischer you aren't required to keep receipts for purchases from your business credit card or bank account. The IRS says to keep records for your business tax deductions indicating:

• What you bought
• When you bought it
• How much you spent

It doesn't mention requiring paper receipts at all. There is an exception. A receipt is required if you make an out-of-pocket cash purchase for > $75. As a result, photo-tracking functionality in apps like Stessa and Apartments.com become kinda redundant. 

Aside from Excel, here are the most common REI accounting software programs out there:

• Quickbooks Online ($85 per month). 
• Stessa (Free, but eventually $19 a month, let’s be honest)
• Digb ($1 a month, but $19 a month if you have > 1 property). 

Please stop talking about taking pictures of all of your receipts and uploading them to apps. This is so 2019 :) 

Great thread here with a few suggestions good (Quickbooks, Stessa, Digb) and one surprise I've never heard of before - Notion. I think you'd need to be a guru.

REI Software to help to track income and expenses