It seems like a lot of people are using QuickBooks Pro. But I was curious to people’s thoughts on the Rental Property Manager software versus QB Pro. What are the pro/cons to both. Rental Property seems like it would be geared more directly to us.
And which one does everyone recommend.
Anybody using both?
I own a 9 unit apartment complex, a duplex, and a sfr. I currently track everything in Excel. But its becoming a lot more cumbersome with the 9 unit.
Yeah you definitely need something to organize bills and track expenses. I am pretty sure Quickbooks has a rental section. From what I hear it is a pretty inclusive program and you can get tax and payroll updates every year. Our secretary uses it for our construction business.
I have a property manager for my rentals who keeps my books straight and I just log into a web interface to check up on things.
I use Peachtree Accounting and love it. It is a little more complex tha Quickbooks but much more complete.
I use Quicken Rental Property Manager. Its simple, its easy and its does the job fairly good if you have less then 20 units or so. It tracks rents, expenses and you can create different type of tenants tracking.
It is by no means comprehensive property mngt tool but if you are a small landload like me it keeps things in order.
DFW
quickbooks will do everything you need. why pay more?
I apologize to post to an old topic, but I have some specific data points from people who have tried to use rental property manager. It may be great for super small and simple landlording companies, but then you may be able to do it all with Excel, too.
Here’s the low down:
Many of my customers have first tried to use Quicken Rental Property Manager, however it did not work out well for them. Because it is designed to be so “simple” many real business scenarios just aren’t supported. QuickBooks’s is still our best bet (between the two of them). Here is what some of what they said:
“I tried the Quicken PM [Rental Property Manager] - very busy and very non-initutive [sic]. - C.B. (Customer Spring 2009)”
“We are presently using Quicken Rental Property Manager 2.0. It is an entry level program but quite an improvement from our previous excel spreadsheet system.Quicken RPM 2.0 does not provide the ability to compare expenses, profits, between individual units/tenants on our property’s. - D.W. (Customer Winter 2009)”
“Checked with my accountant on this one and turns out this is actually a QUICKEN product so it doesn’t have the double entry system and some other necessary business features. - C.K. (Winter 2009)”
“The new software [Rental Property Manager] did not produce any late notices and is not able to be interfaced with Quickbooks. - E.E. (Fall 2008)”
I hope you too will turn to QuickBooks since it is a real business accounting software package. It’s not hard to set up, and with the guide you can order from us, you’ll be quickly moving in the right direction.
Hope this helps,
We use Tenant pro which have everything you need.
I wrote a pretty neat Excel spreadsheet that does everything I need it to do. So far so good! I think eventually I will convert it to MS Access form, so it can do a little more than it can do now.
I use Buildium web app and am pretty happy with it. In addition to keeping books it helps with an online site for advertising rentals, a very nice way to list to craigslist with very professional listings, a way to take online payments from tenants, online maintenance requests, online applications and application fee payments, and tenants can log in and view documents like the lease, payment history, etc. This feature can be turned off too if you don’t like that.
Are you still using Buildium, and are you still happy with it, I’m trying to mange about 35 properties with different owners and I’m looking for a solution in which I can manage the properties and the company financials in one program.
Also for those that use quickbooks do you have to set up two companies or not, and can you print tenant invoices, owner reports and manage expenses with it.
Thanks
two companies? Only if you have two entities with separate tax returns. QB allows you to set up as many companies as you desire, but you only need separate QB companies if they have separate tax returns.
invoices? yep. and statements, automatic late fees, etc. A/R reports (who owes you what). Handles cash posting and deposits easily.
owner reports? yep. profit/loss. profit/loss by property. balance sheet. balance sheet by property (2012 and later versions only). cash flow. custom reports. pretty much whatever you need you can get.
Thanks for your reply I read somewhere on intuit site about the two companies, I’m not that familiar with QB would you be able to tell me how you have quickbooks setup,and are you able to manage doing your own repairs/rehabs and marking them up for the customer/landlord.
Thanks
Yep.
Although it’s pretty easy to set up and use. Very intuitive.
Buildium is good for the property and the properties books, but not for the management company.
For instance, you buy a faucet for $40 and install it on a managed house. I can enter a property bill for $40 plus labor, but can’t manage my own books. There’s supposed to be some way to do it on there by creating a new property and using it to “mark up” the expenses but I haven’t figured it out. Also, if you bought the faucet for $40 and sold for $50 to the property owner this can’t seem to do it either.
It’s great for keeping the property books. I love it for listing and the website it creates for online applications and craigslist ads, etc. It lets me manage work orders, tenants create maintenance requests online, etc. It stoes copies of a lease and documents like check in sheets so that it’s easy to find, and give access to tenants (only if you want).
they recently came out with an iphone app that isn’t great but looks promising. If it adds financial functions to it it’ll be great. But I can do a lot of things right from the iphone without computer access now.
I would go with Quickbooks. Intuit is an established company and they’re always improving their software. It might not be specifically designed for rental properties or landlording, but you can customize it with the classes/categories to do anything you need.
I used Quickbooks and it really did wonders for me…
Quickbooks Pro is wonderful. It makes tax time so much easier, too. It imports right into TurboTax and has all of the spreadsheets you need for investing in properties. The only downside is the long learning curve in learning the program. It is difficult to learn but with the price of the program you get wonderful phone support that will walk you through any question you could possible have.
Many investors and realtors us Quickbooks Pro and so the company has heard any kind of question possible. Call them and ask. They are great.
I use Rentpost.com and it has made my business much more efficient. It is very user friendly and has been a breeze to use to keep all of my properties organized in one place. Also the price is surprising low, definitely worth the cost for all the help you get.
Well, I hope QuickBooks Pro is far better than any other since it is a real business accounting software package that is all in one. Although, there are many other if you are looking only for property management software.