Has anyone tried one of these Bookkeeping Products?

General Real Estate Investing
1

Hi everyone,
I hope everyone is enjoying their day :slight_smile:

I am looking for a good bookkepping product to order, but I have a few choices and was wondering if anyone has tried these or has heard any negatives about them. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

  1. Real Estate Investor’s KISS Guide to Bookkeeping by John Hyre
    (says it works w/ Quickbooks, but is sold seperately) cost - $295

  2. Investor Books Made EZ by Mike Butler
    (Intuit’s QuickBooks Pro® is the best software for Real Estate Investors). (comes w/ quickbooks pro) cost - $600

  3. The Creative Real Estate Investors Guide to Bookkeeping
    by George Yeiter (comes w/ quickbooks) cost - $297 sale (reg. $497)

any help would be great #3 sounds like it would be the best from what I’ve read, but I would like some opinions if anybody has used or heard anything about these products. Thanks again.

Jeff

2

The best thing that you can do is the following:

  1. Get either MS Money or Quicken ( I prefer quicken and use the premier home and business edition myself). Learn to use them ( read that manual.

  2. Go to your tax professional, tell them that what exactly you will be doing as different real estate techniques require slightly different accounting methods. Your advisor should be able to give you a list of categories to include in your bookkeeping.

  3. Use it properly. If you don’t input EVERYTHING in the program, it’s helpfulness is limited.

There is really no need to buy some expensive howto course/program. Quicken and a good accountant is all that you need.

Raj

3

thanks for the your input. I was thinking that too, but I’ve heard that some people have to train their CPA anyways on how to incorporate real estate in their taxes. I just thought maybe since these programs were made by Investors that it would be better to use.

thanks again for the information.

4

Real estate has been around longer than CPAs, or taxes, for that matter. If you have to “train” your CPA, then my suggestion would be find another CPA, preferrably one that specializes in real estate.

Hope it helps,

Roger

5

I totally agree with getting a CPA that specializes in Real Estate. Thanks again for the great info :slight_smile:

6

Intuit (Quicken & Quickbooks) also has a rental property program. I have recently bought it, but not used it yet. It looks pretty good. I got it pretty cheap off E-bay.

7

Hi David, How cheap did you get It off of Ebay? It sells for $100.00 at Office Max.

8

I think I was able to get it for $80 - 90. Not a lot off, but some. You just have to find one listed. I found that alot of these “investment” softwares are being sold on eBay.

9

I have John Hyre’s KISS Guide to Bookkeeping. My wife handles tax prep, bookkeeping, all financials and she loves KISS so far (just bought beginning of this year). I went and listened to John Hyre speak a while back and the guy is as sharp as they come. Another thing to consider is he is a regular on this site and helps a lot of us newer folks out - as do many of the other highly successful investors who donate their time to this site for no monetary benefit to themselves. John is a CPA/Lawyer/investor who spends most of his REIclub time on the legal/asset protection forum. If you want to shoot any questions by him, I’m sure he’d be happy to anwer them.

Good luck,

Steve Reutzel