Posted by mikePA on January 04, 2004 at 09:43:43:
properly set up, quickbooks can be used efficiently for rentals…i’ve set it up for various clients and it works well. Act is mainly a client database manager…
mikePA
Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 03, 2004 at 16:23:47:
Hi everybody.
I have been using Quicken for my personal finance for years and years. I now have LLC and thinking of using Quicken Premier Home & Business. Has anyone used this product to keep truck of REI and LLC stuff? Any comments?
Do you know any other product fits better with REI activity than Quicken?
Thanks in advance.
Quickbooks online - Posted by CarolFL
Posted by CarolFL on January 04, 2004 at 17:09:42:
is what we now use.
And the corp. manages rentals and buys/sells.
I fought learning how to deal with it myself and spent piles on accnts and bookkeepers until I bit the bullet and learned to “read the numbers”.
QB is GREAT for that.
The only drawback to the online version (which I like because I can work from home, office, traveling, whatever)is that I can’t run more than one company on the same subscription. QBPro (desktop)gives you the possibility of handling a number of entities with the same software.
Would be glad to share our experience in more detail if you have detailed qtns.
Regards,
CarolFL
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Frank Chin
Posted by Frank Chin on January 04, 2004 at 12:19:10:
whyK:
We’ve used Quicken prior to year 2001, then Quickbooks to do our REI accounting.
When my wife did the bookkeeping, she found Quicken a lot easier because she used it basically as a single entry accounting system, to categorize expenses.
When I took over, I like the discipline of double entry bookkeeping. These days, we get monthly mortgage statmements from the bank, and a quick comparison of the escrow balances on the statement to Quickbooks escrow balances will tell me if I missed posting a tax or insurance expense.
We also pay certain utility bills that we in turn bill tenants. Quickbooks has a nice re-imbursable expense feature for that.
So if you’re going to make a change, go all the way to Quickbooks.
Frank Chin
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Del-Ohio
Posted by Del-Ohio on January 03, 2004 at 22:02:58:
If you are serious about growing your real estate business. Take a look at Quickbooks, its designed to run a business. It is a LOT easier to get the information presented in a form that you can use to make decisions.
I used it in a couple other businesses, my partners wife insisted on using quicken when we started real-estate a year ago, today after purchasing 17 properties, its a nightmare. We are now pulling everything out of it and putting it on Quickbooks, along with John Hyres Quickbooks spoecially designed KISS software.
My Viewpoint
Del-Ohio
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by David B (NJ)
Posted by David B (NJ) on January 03, 2004 at 18:37:53:
whyk,
I use Quicken to track my real estate investments, but I’m pretty basic. All I do is set up a category for each property–actually I set up 2, one for income, one for expenses. When I receive the check from my tenant, I enter it into Quicken, then put the category for the property income. I then pay the expenses for that property–the mortgage, the association fee, and the insurance. Each check that I write (or if I do it on the web) I put the category for that property and expense. And that’s about it. I haven’t even done a report yet, but i guess I could print out a report for each property and I’d see all the income and expenses for it. For loan interest, I simply use the interest form from the bank listing the interest that I paid. Do you think I could be using Quicken in more sophisticated ways?
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Will_IL
Posted by Will_IL on January 03, 2004 at 17:07:11:
I hear some people are using Quickens QuickBooks, which is tailored more for business use to keep track of business expense. I just got a copy and will start using it today. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Re: Quickbooks online - Posted by Frank Chin
Posted by Frank Chin on January 04, 2004 at 19:30:05:
Carol:
I use QB Pro, have a broadband conenction at my business, plus a subscription to GoToMyPC, and I’m able to log in to my “biz PC” and work on QB from home, on the road, whatever. The only thing is I have to keep the PC on at all times.
Frank Chin
Re: Quickbooks online - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 04, 2004 at 17:19:58:
Thank you for your offer. Based on some of the posts, I decided to go with Quickbooks Pro.
Have a nice week.
-whyK
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 04, 2004 at 14:29:45:
Thanks, Fank.
One more question…which version of Quickbooks do you recommend? Basic? Pro? Premier?
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 04, 2004 at 24:34:00:
Hi Del-Ohio,
Thanks for sharing your experience. What version of Quickbooks are you switching to?
Thanks.
-whyK
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 03, 2004 at 19:16:31:
Hi David,
Quicken has pre defined Categories and Sub Categories. Some of them are tied to Tax form. So when tax time comes, you can make report by clicking some botton, or you can import into TurboTax too. I see bunch of categories for Schedule A, C etc pre-defined. (My copy is still Quicken2000 Deluxe)
I also download credit card statements and bank statements, so I don’t have to type.
The reason I am asking opinion here is because I never had my company before and still learning how to keep truck of company record. I wanted do myself a favor by using good tool to start with.
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Scott (FL)
Posted by Scott (FL) on January 03, 2004 at 18:40:43:
Will,
Please let me know how QuickBooks works for you. I’ve heard of people using something called “ACT” (you can do a search), but I need to investigate it further. Any feedback others can provide would be appreciated.
Good investing.
Scott
Re: Quickbooks online - Posted by CarolFL
Posted by CarolFL on January 05, 2004 at 07:46:39:
Frank,
Thanks for the thought. I have considered that option as well as may end up there. However, with the QB online, my bookkeeper/consultant type person (a QB pro who has owned numerous businesses of her own, and who sorts out the messes I make!) and CPA both log on and check things out for me.
Have a great day.
Carol
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Frank Chin
Posted by Frank Chin on January 04, 2004 at 16:00:06:
whyK:
I started with Quickbooks Basic, and switched to Pro (year 2003) for its networking capability. But I found the other major benefit being the abiltiy to download reports to a spreadsheet which I cannot do in Basic.
For instance, before I got Pro, I printed out my monthly bank reconciliation - about 8 to 10 pages each month, and attached it to a paper copy of the bank statement. With Pro, I keep a copy of the spreadsheet, plus an acrobat copy of the Bank statement, now available on line. That’s about 20 sheets of paper I eliminated each month.
On other occasion, I had to reconcile some accounts receivable because it didn’t match my manual records, and I downloaded the customer statement to a spreadsheet, resorted the data to compare to my manual records. I wouldn’t have been able to do that in basic either.
I plan to upgade to either Pro or Premier 2004 since the 2004 version has the mortgage functions (principal and interest).
I looked into the advantages of Premier a while back, and at the time, I didn’t find the advantages to be that compelling, mainly greater functionalities in doing journal entries. But because I had a good year in RE, and at my businesss, it doesn’t seem like a big deal at this point.
With the exception of the ability to download data to Excel, I found Basic to be more than adequate.
Frank Chin
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Tom-FL
Posted by Tom-FL on January 03, 2004 at 20:45:05:
ACT! is a contact management software, not a financial package. However, the latest version will interface with Excel so you could pull up all the finnancial data associated with a contact.
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 03, 2004 at 19:39:04:
Hi Scott,
ACT! is different kind of product. It’s for managing business contacts and stuff. Quicken or QuickBook are for money side of it.
Thanks.
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by whyK
Posted by whyK on January 04, 2004 at 16:44:48:
Thank you, Frank! I really appricate your time.
After reading your input, I decided to go with Pro version. I just placed an order.
Happy Investing!
-whyK
Re: Keeping Truck of REI and LLC with Quicken? - Posted by Scott (FL)
Posted by Scott (FL) on January 04, 2004 at 24:18:18:
Thanks for keeping me straight. The posts I read where a little vague on whether ACT! was a complete package (finance and contacts). I would love to know what the full time investors use, and at what point they thought their needs merited the use of the software. I plan on smartly buying long-term rentals. Would this merit the use of ACT!?
Scott