Property Management Chart of Account

Our chart of accounts (ten residential rental units) includes an account for each property in both the balance sheet and the income statement. More specifically, there's an account for each utility expense, for each tax expense, for each insurance expense, for each mortgage pmt, for each maintenance expense, etc. The mtg. pmts are initially entered as an expense for cash flow purposes, and are reclassified at year end into principle & interest. For office & general maintenance expenses, we have ONE account and divide it up at year end For rental income, each tenant has an account which becomes deposit detail. Love QBooks!!! Good luck!

good basic comment but I am trying to set up a chart of accounts as well but am looking for a more detailed example (accountant code - catagories - sub catagories etc) that will work for all my investment properties

anybody have something like that?

I have been thinking that it would work if I have a "property income", a sub-account showing the property and a sub account of the property address showing the tenant. This, I believe, would allow me to make the tenant inactive when they vacate, yet still reflecting income.

As far as setting up the property owners it should be basically be set up the same way.

If anyone has a better suggestion, PLEASE, let me know.

Lets try this, when you create a new company file in QuickBooks, it will ask you for a chart of accounts - Select Property Management industry.

Gita Faust

Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor

Author of "Accounting for Real Estate Agents"

Manage your real estate business, home office and personal finances with Excel, Quicken, QuickBooks and Paper and pencil.

Author of "Manage Properties with QuickBooks" for property owners

Author of "Manage Properties with QuickBooks" for property managers

Are you managing properties that YOU own or properties that are owned by others? If your managing properties that you own, choosing "Property Management" as the industry during the set up feature will give you a decent chart of accounts that you can change based on your needs. However, for the properties that are not owned by you (the property management company), you will need a liability account which you can further subdivide into things like earned management fees, rents collected, security deposits, repairs, etc. You'll need a lot of the same things that will show up on the QB generated CoA - but as liabilities, not income and expenses. Then you can track the complexes and individual units using classes.

Hi katie0479: By far your answer to this question is the most targeted one! thank you so much. However, my question is what if I manage both? properties of my own and properties owned by others! in that case, how do I setup my chart of accounts? Please advise...

After several tries at trying to figure out how to get property management to work with Quick Books, I surrendered and asked for help. The most useful and by far the quickest way wais to contact Gita Faust via her website and purchasing her book on property management. The instructions were easy to follow and complete with all the details needed to get the job done correctly. She uses a simple chart of accounts with the majority of the accounting being charged to the correct property,tenants etc. using "Classes". Call her, she is great! The cost of her book with a sample property management company is a great investment.

Could you please please send me a copy of your chart of accounts.  I would greatly appreciate it.