Quickbook for Landlords and Property Managers

Nancy,
I'm a property manager as well. I use the on line edition. Do you have background with the on line version?
Patricia

I don't use the online version, but I may be able to help you. What would you like to know?

Hi Patricia,

Some of my customers (landlords or prop mgrs) try to use QuickBooks Online Edition (OE), and while they haven't yet complained to me... there are some severe limitations between Pro and OE.

Here's a good writeup of some differences: http://www.qbalance.com/QuickB...
(They also have a 9 page pdf of the OE help text there that goes into more detail).

Even though everything is moving to the web, I still recommend the Pro version. With other software, you can get the same "remote access" OE gives you. Also it's cheaper, and has more features (such as custom fields for customer/jobs). Pro lists at $199, but Nancy or any other Pro Advisor can give you a $30 discount.

I am curious to know what benefits you get by using the Online Edition. There are many worthwhile reasons to go with OE, so long as you know what you are loosing.

Jonathan

Jonathan,
Thank You. I have used Quick Books for my property management company for 10 years. I'm happy with the on line edition. I have five companies that several employees access. Most anything I need I can export to excel and create. My needs are in components such as creating a general journal functions. I need a way to customize memorized calculations. My employees spend way too much time on things that could be minimized with some simple tweaks to the program. Time is money! From the experience I have had with software developers that have created property management products, they are just that software developers and not property managers. They seem to put the product out there and let the customers figure out what works and what does not. Quick Books already has a great basic formula that works well. A few additions to the current on line edition will automate my company drastically.

Hi
I am going to do the accounting for a 7 tenant office building. The individual I am doing the management for bought quicken Rental Property Mgt 2.5. He is familiar with Quicken. I think it would be easier to use Quickbooks since it is not a program geared to individuals. Is it easy to set up Quickbooks to generate a rent roll, delinquency report, rent bill. I have used Quickbooks, but not the classes or for billing. I work in property management accounting and use Timberline. I am doing this job on the side.
Thanks
Jim

Quicken Rental Property Management is a nice program but it's only a data entry program. You cannot write checks or make deposits. So, what you are doing is doing double entry and that's a lot of wasted time.

QuickBooks does everything. It will generate a rent Roll, delinquency reports, and anything your little heart desires...well almost! The reason it can do what you want it to do is because it allows you to CUSTOMIZE it, where other programs won't.

I would suggest anyone who owns a business, whether it is a small time mom and pop operation or higher, to use QuickBooks

Here is something I designed myself in QuickBooks. It is a special Note Feature

Nancy Neville, Certified QuickBooks Pro Advisor
Author: The New & Improved Landlord & Property Managers Guide to QuickBooks
Landlord

Nancy,

i'm a property manager myself and had a question. I am setting up my quickbooks, but want to have 2 separate forms for purchase orders and service orders so that i can create reports on both and track them as well as enter them differently. Do you have a suggestion on how to accomplish this. There is only one vendor form for purchase orders and i don't know if that can be changed. Let me know if you have any advice.

thanks

Kara

I hope this is what you mean. You want a purchase order and by a service order you mean a Work Order to give your workers.

This is what I do.

I've designed my own Work Orders in QuickBooks that I give my Work Crew and Handyman.

Then I have Purchase Orders that I use to purchase material.

The Work Orders are created using a Sales Receipt Template. I believe this is what YOU want to do?

The Purchase Orders are done right from QuickBooks.

Here is a sample of my Work Order.

Attachment

Is there any way to assign classes after the fact? I have set up and been using my QB for my rental property (as a landlord) for 3 years now. However, due to my relocation to another island, I now have two properties to keep track of (a cottage rental and a main house rental). All previous transactions pertained to the cottage, but starting in November 2007 I have new transactions to post for the main house. I know that I can use classes to track these two rental properties separately, however, other than going back 3 years and editing each and every transaction to add a class, is there any possible way to add class to past transactions easier and faster? Please advise.

Hi phaleakala,

Here's an idea that can still give you (almost) all of the same information you'd get by re-entering the transactions with classes:

Specify as of Nov 2007 you'll start using classes for the main house and the cottage. Previously all transactions refer to the cottage. Moving forward from Nov, when you create reports you'll clearly show the two profit centers. And to get totals for 2007 of each property's P&L you'll add the no-class transactions (cottage) + cottage class transactions. The house's transactions will be split into a class.

This isn't the most elegant technique, but it is pragmatic. And it is elegant going forward.

If you want to automatically go back and enter classes in past transactions, QuickBooks does have a software API. You could hire someone to script through and edit the past transactions in bulk, but to me that seems like money wasted.

Let us know how you do!

Jonathan
Author: Landlord Accounting in QuickBooks step-by-step ebook

I am a landlord, new to QuickBooks. I am trying to set up accounts for tenants' security deposits but I am getting caught up in what kind of account etc.

Hi Nancy - can you please help me? I am an owner of 50 units, and just started in QB PRO. I have set up each property as a class, each unit within the properties as a sub class, and an AR register with each tenant and monthly rent in it. But now I do not know what to do next - I want to see a rentroll for the whole lease term for each tenant and would like to group it by unit (subclass) so that I can see the payemnt history of each tenant and unit (oten I have one - four tenant per unit, each paying their share of the unit's rent)

I do not bill them at all, they just sent the money each month and I need an easy way to look at this as well as record the payments/ deposits.
Any help would be great!

Thank you.

Security Deposits are anything that may need to be paid back. Therefore, Security Deposits are setup as an "Other Current Liability" in your Chart of Accounts.

Thank you. Where can I buy your book so that I do not drive my accountant crazy setting up my program?

Imaywatt, with 50 properties you really should Invoice your tenants, even if you don't physically send them an Invoice. The Invoice gives you so much control over your reports.

When you Invoice your tenants you are creating a "Rent Roll". You can access many different reports to give you all the information that you are asking for.

To view how much your tenants rents were, and how much they paid (for any given time) you would go to Reports by class, and then filter it by selecting what property you want to see, and/or unit. This will give you a report for a single tenant in a single unit. It will also tell you how much they paid in rents and what expenses incurred for that unit.

You can select the dates to tell you what period of time you want to see this information for. It can be for one day, or a week, or a month or a year.

I'm a little confused about the 4 per unit. Are you talking about 4 tenants to one apartment and each pays a portion of the rent? And you want a record of each person who pays and what their share of the rent is?

Sometimes it's hard answering questions when we are not sitting together talking to each other and you showing me what you mean.

So forgive me if I am not answering your question or have misunderstood what you need.

Nancy Neville

Nancy, where can I buy your Quickbook for Landlords and Property Managers book?

I'm new to QuickBooks 2008 Pro. I currently use Quicken for my checkbook and Quicken Rental Property Manager for my rental property (one house). I would like to consolidate and use just QuickBooks Pro for both my checkbook and managing the income and expenses associated with the rental house. Will I lose functionality if I do this? For example, I like the Bill Reminders in Quicken, and I like the simplicity and easy reports in Rental Property Manager.

Thoughts on the above?

Thanks,
Jon

Jon,

I believe if you follow this link, you will be able to buy the book there. I am new to all this too. Have been managing four commercial properties with a checkbook and am in the process of deciding on how to put them on Quickbooks Pro 2008. I'll probably be buying her book too. Sounds like she really knows her way around this program.

Carl

Guess the link would help:

http://www.sunriseinvestments.net/

Hello,
New here and new to Quickbooks. I really appreciate all the info I have gathered from going through many of the posts.
Anyway, I manage my own rentals plus some others for clients. These are all single-family rentals. So far I have set things up, per Nancy, as Properties=Class; Tenants=Customers; Vendors=Vendors and Tenants get billed.

OK, my question is this: Can I go directly to the register and be able to assign 'Class' to any transactions? Or, do I have to be in the Bill or Check writing mode to assign the transaction to the property (Class)?

Thanks for the help...........

Hi Thorin,

Glad you're finding help on these forums. Please feel comfortable posting back here to help others as you learn more. You don't need to be an expert, just sharing what you're doing can help.

I tell my landlords to "use classes for everything," because you don't want to forget it or your property tracking abilities will be impaired. However, in reality classes only apply to income and expense accounts.

You can't assign a class to a transaction that affects a balance sheet account. It's just not the way QB's works. As for "HOW" you enter the classes, it doesn't matter. So long as the transaction you care about has a class, it doesn't matter how it got there. Generally, I suggest Writing Checks, and not Paying Bills, though.

Good luck, and share back with us what you're learning!

Jonathan
Author: Landlord Accounting QuickBooks for Landlords: Step-By-Step eBook

Good morning, folks:
What a lot of action here!  Thanks for all the posting, but I need to ask you to do something.  There are a lot of different questions being asked in this thread that might be better off in a separate thread so that somebody can find them.  I don't have time right now to reorganize this, but you could help me and everybody else out tremendously by either starting a new thread with new questions or even bumping an old thread on a topic to current with a new post.
I also want to say thanks to everybody for how you've handled the subject of Nancy's book.  Promotional posting can create confusion in these forums and is sometimes a bone of contention.  If another user not connected with a vendor posts info about how to find a resource, that's fine.  You might also find that info in a person's profile or anybody can refer back to a post made in the Classified forums where the name of the game is promotional posting.
Thanks for making my day a little bit easier,
Dennis