Skip to main content

Learn all About Rental Property Accounting



We understand that a real estate investor is burdened with loads of work which includes managing one or more properties, their maintenance, finding reliable tenants, and ensuring the overall profitability of the business. With all these responsibilities real estate accounting or bookkeeping tends to take a back seat.
However, accounting for all the financial transactions is a crucial aspect of any business. Failing to keep a track of the income and expenses can prove costly and also increases your burden during the tax filing season.
But do not worry, we have a list of practical tips and techniques that will help any real estate investor to be on top of their rental property accounting:

Separate Personal and Business Accounts

The first and the most basic tip to keep in mind is to separate personal and business accounts. Rental property owners tend to pay for management of their properties through their personal accounts.
Although this sounds easier, it mixes your personal expenditure with expenses incurred on maintenance of rental properties causing confusion. A separate account helps a property investor track income, expenditure, maintenance costs, and even vacancies.

Open a Separate Account for Each Rental Property

When owning multiple rental properties, we suggest you open a separate account for each one.
Keeping a separate account for each property simplifies filing taxes and aids in the calculation of profit and loss on each property. Additionally, the investor can also identify properties that are proving to be non-profitable and take measures towards the same.

Income-Expenditure Tracking

Income and expenditure tracking forms the crux of real estate accounting. A tracking system needs to be in place to track the flow of income and expenditure incurred on each property and for the business overall. Investors can use custom-made worksheets to record their expenses or can opt for rental accounting software.

Choose Between the Cash and Accrual Accounting Methods

Choosing an accounting method is an important step in setting up the expenses tracking system.
If the real estate investor prefers to log income and expenses based on when it is earned or deducted irrespective of when the cash is received or paid, then they can opt for the accrual accounting method.
Investors can alternatively opt for the cash accounting method where they log income and expenditure while receiving or paying out cash.
The choice of method is a matter of preferences. However, we advise you to stay consistent and file all transactions using a single accounting method.

Use Digital Applications

Using digital applications and services help investors integrate real estate accounting for different properties and analyze the profitability of each of them individually as well as identify units impact on the overall profitability of the business.
Digitizing invoices and data also enable investors to access data from anywhere even while travelling. Furthermore, using advanced tools and past data investors can forecast future prospects, income, and expenditure. Digital applications also aid in decluttering the workspace and lend a helping hand in saving the planet.
Apart from these, investors can hire experienced Certified Personal Accountants (CPAs) to manage their accounts and track their income and expenses.

Make Use of the Best!

Efficient real estate accounting has a plethora of advantages. Investors can use accounting to protect themselves from fraud or debt, forecast future income and expenditure, save time and money while filing taxes, and adjust their business operations to ensure maximum profitability.

Source : https://www.outsourcinghubindia.com/learn-rental-property-accounting/

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why Should One Outsource the Accounts Management Processes of a Business?

W ell, for one reason that it means one less thing to bother about for the business! Not having to keep track of all the transactions – be it small or big – keeping the books updated is one hell of a task to do on a regular basis. But, as is obvious, outsourcing comes at a price and one needs to be convinced that it is worth for one’s business. On that note, let us now go about some advantages of outsourcing the accounts maintenance of the business. Here’s why there is an immense need for  outsourcing accounting  in today’s corporate world – Big, medium or small – whatever the scale of a business is, today’s customization accounting software can be effectively implemented for any of them. Outsourcing the manually processes to automation is an intelligent step because it means a onetime investment and lifetime’s benefits. Also automation means less manpower costs, fewer human errors and standardization Accounting practices can be murky and this only means lower visibility ...

Hiring a Property Management Company

Owners with numerous properties and rental units are often stumped with the burden of managing incomes from them. It becomes a time-consuming and a daunting task to handle the various aspects of property management like handling rental incomes, owner’s funds and filing tax returns to name a few. Hiring a competent  Property Management Company  ensures an effective way to manage incomes from various let-outs, security deposits, reserve funds and even writing checks on owner’s behalf. Property managers exercise extensive skill and care into marketing rentals, retaining tenancy, maintenance and repairs thus saving your time and efforts! How an efficient Property Management Company handles your funds? An expert property management firm can become one of your greatest assets, if chosen wisely! So before you hire one, here are some features a management company should inherently possess to handle tenant and owner funds proficiently. 1. On-time Payment to Owners Proper...

List of Accounting Outsourcing Companies

When it comes to running a business, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have to deal with a number of activities such as executing their core functions, dealing with clients, managing accounts, etc. However, all these can get taxing on the business operations in the long run. To help such businesses manage their routine workload, accounts outsourcing companies help in a great way. Accounts outsourcing involves hiring an external party to carry out activities such as rendering professional accounting services to clients within the time-limits, helping businesses to maintain their accounts database, etc. List of Accounting Outsourcing Companies Here is a list of the 5 best outsourcing companies that you can look out for. 1. OHI- OutsourcingHubIndia OHI specializes in  accounting outsourcing services . Started in 2006, it has created a niche for itself in the outsourcing sector with its top-notch working systems, excellent infrastructure and ethical work practices. Their ...