Bookkeeping is the recording of financial transactions for individuals or businesses. These records are what entrepreneurs can use to analyze the financial performance of their business, otherwise known as accounting. I’ve heard many exciting tales of finding the perfect deal, or negotiating through an impossible situation, or the ever popular tenant horror stories. But if you start talking about rental property bookkeeping, people’s eyes glaze over.

• You might notice that we don’t include QuickBooks or any other dedicated accounting software on this list.
• Although accounting for rental properties does not need to be complicated, taxation often is.
• Early in your investing career, you wanted to keep things as simple as possible.
• Having separate bank accounts keeps a landlord’s personal funds separate from business funds.

If everything above sounds confusing or overwhelming, you might want to enlist the help of a CPA. Bringing an outside specialist onto your team will not only bring a fresh set of eyes but will also add an experienced tax professional who will get up to speed on your finances and avoid costly mistakes. Rent Manager also has additional customizable features for each user, including online payment portals, marketing and leasing, operations, maintenance, and advanced reporting. It integrates with close to 100 other programs like Avidxchange, Beanworks, Safeguard, and ZeGo by PayLease. The comprehensive accounting system in Rent Manager has all the functionality a landlord may need combined with outside platform integrations, so we awarded it as our best for extra features.

Best Extra Features

Founded in 2016, tens of thousands of investors use Stessa to monitor over $45 billion in real estate assets. Property Matrix serves accountants, investors, and property managers through its numerous affiliates, such as the National Apartment Association and the American Apartment Owners Association. Besides the accounting features, Buildium also offers a lot of advanced features with easy-to-understand tutorials. Growth offers more features, the ability to service up to 5,000 units, and starts at $166 a month. Our choice for best overall, AppFolio, comes with basic and advanced features, making it accessible to landlords who do their own accounting and to beginner and advanced accountants and bookkeepers alike. You should keep receipts or other records of expenses you’re deducting in order to ensure that you are able to substantiate the claim should you face an IRS audit.

Buildium integrates with several outside software platforms, including TransUnion, RevSpring, MSI, Nelco, Happy Inspector, PayNearMe, and more. This solid list of integrations, the recognition it has received from G2 and Capterra, and its active updates to resolve issues make it a reliable platform. Nick Charveron is a licensed tax practitioner, Co-Founder & Partner of Community Tax, LLC. His Enrolled Agent designation is the highest tax credential offered by the U.S Department of Treasury, providing unrestricted practice rights before the IRS.

Start With a Property You Own

Azibo Accounting was designed for rental properties and it comes with all the categories, metrics, and reports you’ll need to stay organized and compliant. No need to spend tens of hours creating custom tags – we’ve built this platform specifically for your rental business. View comprehensive reports in Azibo or send them to your accountant during tax season to save even more time.

Each of the tools below specializes in rental property management or has a robust set of features ideal for managing rentals. So far, we’ve touched on a few of the features and benefits you get from rental property accounting software. It’s important to use past data from rental properties to forecast future expenses. It’s essential to set aside a percentage of your rental income into savings as a buffer each month to cover these expenses.

Florida Eviction Laws: Grounds, Steps & Timelines for Landlords and Tenants

The bare minimum you should do is set up one bank account dedicated to all of your properties. A step up from that is opening up one bank account for each of your properties. It is strongly encouraged for business owners to go digital for all things accounting and bookkeeping. Before getting started, it’s helpful to understand bookkeeping and accounting functions and how they are related to one another.