Bookkeeping for rental income and expenses
Keeping records of your property, from income to expenses and more so accurate ones is very important for a landlord. They are handy when filing property taxes or Rental Income Tax and generally when monitoring your property.
Advantages of Using QuickBooks for Rental Property Management
QuickBooks make work easier for landlords and property managers. Here are some benefits;
1. Tracking income
Tracking your income and expenses becomes easy because you don't have to enter data manually. Your transactions are imported manually and you do not have to do the tedious work. It also makes it easy for you to track your expenses and expenditures in general.
2. Generating reports
With QuickBooks, you don’t have to compile financial reports manually. With just a click, you can get your cash flow statements, profit and loss statements, balance sheets, etc.
3. Accuracy
Using QuickBooks helps you avoid human errors. You don't have to do manual calculations because they are generated automatically. This makes your financial records accurate and very reliable.
4. Organization
You also do not have to have scattered paperwork anymore. QuickBooks organize your reports into categories. It also makes it quickly accessible to find specific reports when needed.
5. Time-saver
With all these tasks being done for you automatically, you save a lot of time. Not having to do financial transactions and other reports can give you so much freedom and peace of mind as a landlord.
QuickBooks is designed to be used with ease and efficiency. QuickBooks is user-friendly and you can easily navigate features.
QuickBooks is very popular. Research shows that it has over 80% of users in the accounting market in the United States of America and over 60% in the global accounting market. Most QuickBooks users are small businesses. QuickBooks is also known for its online accounting software known as QuickBooks Online.
Limitations of QuickBooks for Rental Property Management
While QuickBooks can be of great help when it comes to managing rental properties, it is important to note that it is not meant to exactly cater to rentals.
- You may not find features such as tenant screening, lease agreements, or general tools built for landlords to track their income. It would also be tedious to track records such as maintenance records because they are stored across different categories. To store data such as Tenants’ personal or lease information, you might need external storage.
- For landlords with multiple properties, it might be hard to separate their finances from their properties. This would require extra accounts or for them to find a way to work around it as their portfolio continues to grow.
- Even though QuickBooks are capable of generating reports, they are not exactly tailored for use by landlords. It might be hard for them to track property performance and get metrics such as vacancy rates, returns, and other tenant screening services.
To use QuickBooks for rental properties efficiently, you have to integrate it with other software. This is however unnecessary because there is software specifically designed for rental property management.
