Re: LandlordMax software? - Posted by Frank Chin
Posted by Frank Chin on July 15, 2007 at 07:24:52:
Rick:
I have over a dozen to manage, and Quickbboks did just fine for me.
Having been in the IT field, computerizing operations, I sometimes beleive simplicity is better, and some things are even better run manually.
Having done implementation of “enterprise software”, an enterprise with 22 customers is simplicity itself.
Years back, a friend bought an apartment building with about 36 units. He moved into one 1BR apartment, fired the management company, and building manager, and did the managing himself.
When I first went by to visit his “headquarters”, he ran the building from a small desk with a large cardboard chart above it. It’s about two feet high by three feet wide, the size my kids used to do “science projects” nowadays.
The first column on the chart is the apartment numbers. The second column is the name of the tenants, their home and day phone numbers, monthly rent.
Then it’s followed by twelve columns, Jan to December. When the rent is paid for the month, a big “Red X” goes into the box. There are green dots going across on the month boxes when leases come up for renewal.
It was intuitive, a few seconds to understand the system, and at a glance I can tell in the midde of July that as all the boxes had an “X” up to July but one, I can tell right away he had one tenant behind, and how far behind. I can tell how many leases are coming up for renewal glancing at the July column, by couting the green dots.
Tenent complaints??
He has little slips tacked onto the tenant box for outstanding complaints, and takes it down when completed. This is before the days of “post it’s”.
I can replicate the system on an Excel spreadsheet with some bells and whistles. And whatever tenant system you want to buy would incorporate my friend’s simple chart in it’s rudimentary form.
In Quickbooks, I set up tenants as customers (with phone numbers and other info), automtically bill them at the beginning of each month, apply cash as recieved etc… The chart of Accounts mirrrors the “schedule E”, so when I print out the P&L, I got the schedule E as well.
One drawback of my friends system is tracking expenses, and separation by properties if you own more than one. This is where Quickbooks help me.
But for keeping track of tenant issues, rents, my freind’s chart on the wall was the best I’ve seen.
Don’t make it complicated!!!
Frank Chin