Rental properties offer many tax benefits, as well as flexibility in how income and expenses are allocated. This means you can take advantage of accounting methods that provide you the most value. You might need to use a combination of accounting methods to properly account for income and expenses of your rental property business, depending on whether you’re a real estate investor who personally owns and operates their rentals or a property management company that owns and manages rental properties for others.
If you’re running a short-term rental business from your property, then you’ve got a lot on your plate. Yes, you always have to worry about the property itself, but you also have to focus on marketing, lead generation, project management and much much more. And if you’ve recently decided that accounting is not your strong point, well then – maybe time to consider renting an accounting software meant for small businesses.
Accounting software for rental property business is a platform that helps in maintaining the smooth operation of the business. They are equipped with various tools that help the owner in creation of financial reports and invoices, tracking transactions and inventories. Each software has to be selected wisely after going through all the features. To simplify this process, here is a list of accounting software for short-term rental property business.
Rental property accounting software (or landlord software) helps do-it-yourself landlords balance their rent rolls, track earnings and expenses, generate reports and tax schedules, and more.
What is property management accounting software?
Property management accounting software offers a number of features that typical accounting systems do not. In addition to financial reporting and payroll, these programs will integrate industry-specific information about vacancies, units, tenants and property maintenance into the real estate software.
Propertyware
Designed with single family home landlords in mind, Propertyware has earned its place as our best rental property management software for single family homes.Pros
- Mange over 250 properties through it
- Has a mobile app
- Multiple pricing tiers
Cons
- Some customer support complaints
- Fit only for large portfolios
Focused on single family home property management, Propertyware is fairly simple to use, without complicated features commercial management software can have, making it the best choice for single family home management, whether you have few or many. You’ll benefit from Propertyware’s management features whether you are starting out with your first few single family homes or growing into a portfolio of more than 250 of them. It has everything a landlord needs including online rent collection, accounting, maintenance requests, vacant property marketing with leasing agents, marketing with listing syndication, tenant screening services, lead tracking and follow-up, and a portal for vendors.
Propertyware currently has three pricing tiers: Basic, Plus, and Premium, with costs starting at $1 per unit, 1.50 per unit, and $2 per unit, respectively. With the Basic plan, you can run reports; advertise your vacancies; manage the properties with owner and tenant portals; and streamline maintenance work orders, accounting, tenant screening, and rent payments. The Plus plan adds conveniences like two-way text messaging, eSignatures, and inspections. At the Premium level, you can manage your maintenance projects and add portals for your vendors. Each respective tier has a minimum monthly fee of $250, $350, and $450, so to optimize your unit costs, this program is best for managers of at least 250 homes.
Integrations for efficiency include Mail Merge and DocuSign, but aside from those, Propertyware has chosen an in-house approach for marketing, lead generation, and tenant screening rather than integrate with third-party software.
Propertyware is owned by RealPage, a Texas-born company founded in 1998 that currently serves more than 12,400 clients from North America, Europe, and Asia. All members of Propertyware’s management team have over 20 years of experience working in real estate, which means users get software designed by people who understand the industry and how it works.
SimplifyEm
Designed by real estate professionals, SimplifyEm offers the ideal balance of price and features, making it the perfect choice for landlords that need help managing a few properties and don’t want to pay the high cost of other software plans.Pros
- Supports one to 2,000 units
- Designed by real estate professionals
- Has advanced features
Cons
- High fees for online rent payments
- If you have more than 2,000 units, the platform can’t grow with your portfolio
While SimplifyEm supports any number of units from one to 2,000, it’s the best fit for a few properties, because you can keep your costs as low as $20 per month if you’re starting out with fewer than 10 properties.
The price starts at $25 per month for 10 units and increases by $10 for every 10 units after that. At 50 units it is $60, increasing to $75 for 75 units and 100 for $100 units. You can create a free 15-day trial account without needing to enter a credit card. It does not require a dedicated professional to manage this platform. Independent property owners should find this accessible regardless of their experience.
All packages include email and phone support, income and expense tracking, tenant and lease management reporting, and renters insurance.
SimplifyEm is designed to give a simple and easy way for landlords to manage their properties while also saving time and money. It allows users to track income and expenses, collect rent and tenant applications online, screen tenants, generate and analyze owner reports, track maintenance requests, store documents, and automate repetitive tasks. You can get started immediately because it is cloud-based.
SimplifyEm integrates with some of the leading names in the finance and real estate industry, including Zillow, Trulia, NARPM, ACH.com, Fidelity, TransUnion, and more.
Founded in 2006, SimplifyEm has a goal of utilizing the latest in user experience and web technology to develop a software solution that meets the needs of busy real estate professionals. With almost 15 years of experience and clients across the U.S. and Canada, SimplifyEm has been used to manage over $42 billion in property assets and has been verified by Authorize.net and GeoTrust, with high ratings from Software Advice and Capterra.
Landlord Studio
Landlord Studio is a property management software that offers both a desktop and convenient iOS and Android app versions.
Unique features include a clean and modern UI as well as solid accounting features.
However, beyond its accounting features, Landlord Studio can feel a bit lacking compared to other tools on this list.
Landlord Studio features
- Robust accounting features such as rent and expense tracking and reporting
- Tenant screening
- Clean UI
Landlord Studio pricing
Landlord Studio uses a monthly pricing model with an additional cost per unit. Their Start plan is $5.99 per month for 1 unit, with each additional unit after the first being $1 per unit per month.
Their premium Scale plan starts at $19.99 per month when paid annually for 1 unit, with the same $1 per unit per month added after the first unit.
Stessa
Stessa is a cloud-based digital platform created by real estate investors for real estate investors. Property owners can manage, monitor, and communicate the performance of real estate assets with partners or tax preparers.
Simply enter your property address, connect accounts, and run reports with a single click. Features include a performance dashboard at the portfolio and property levels, automated income and expense tracking, secure document storage, and unlimited monthly reports.
Pricing is free with premium services such as rental analysis and mortgage financing available for a fee.
Buildium
Buildium rental property accounting software is a good match for professional real estate investors with large property portfolios.
Property owners can manage accounts receivables and payables, view payments and deposits, sync and reconcile bank accounts, generate monthly and year-end financial reports, and even e-file Form 1099s for independent contractors.
Billing begins at $50 per month after a 14-day free trial.
FreshBooks
FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software system that helps real estate investors grow revenues and boost ROIs. Users can send invoices, monitor expenses, and collect rent payments online.
The software is an all-in-one accounting solution for rental property owners to manage every bookkeeping need, including recurring invoices for rent payments, late payment reminders for tenants, and auto-billing rent payments to speed up cash flow.
Billing begins at $108 per year for up to 5 clients, after a 30-day free trial.
Rent Manager
Similar to Landlord Studio, Rent Manager offers a clean desktop and app version.
However, where Rent Manager differs is in its relatively expansive feature set.
They easily have one of the longest lists of features of the software mentioned here, though their UI is known for being a bit clunky, and their pricing isn’t transparent.
Rent Manager features
- Accounting features such as online rent payments and reporting
- Owner portal
- Vendor payments
- QuickBooks integration
Rent Manager pricing
Rent Manager’s pricing model is complex, to say the lease. They use two pricing models: per unit, per month, as well as pricing tiers for each of its multiple software versions.
However, they don’t list exact pricing publicly, so you’ll need to contact them directly to learn more about their pricing model.
Hemlane
Hemlane has several unique features that make it stand apart from many of the tools on this list.
Features include agent match that can match you with local agents for showings as well as other leasing tools.
The trade-off is that Hemlane is one of the priciest options on the list, depending on how many units you have.
Hemlane features
- Leasing tools such as tenant screening
- Unique local support features such as agent match
- Maintenance management
- Online rent payments
Hemlane pricing
Hemlane has a relatively straightforward pricing model, though it can be a bit on the pricey side. They balance this somewhat with a 30-day free trial to make it easier to decide if you want to invest.
Their Basic plan starts at $30 per month with $2 per unit per month after the first unit. In other words, if you have 20 properties, you’d pay $70 per month.
Their premium-level Complete plan starts at $60 per month and a whopping $32 per property per month for every property after the first.
Key Property Management Accounting Software features should to look for
Track rents & payments
This software will categorize receipts based on the specific real estate category, such as rents, utilities, subleases or late fees. The software also calculates real estate taxes, property insurance, maintenance costs and payroll, and all of this information ties directly to the tenant or property record.
Online payment portal
Some property accounting systems include an online portal for tenants to pay rent. This simplifies the payment process, as renters can pay online 24/7 using credit or debit cards. This feature is more common in full property management suites.
Bank reconciliation
Many systems offer bank reconciliation assistance to ensure the figures match in both your’s and the bank’s accounts. Users can download bank statements to identify and correct discrepancies.
Reporting
Accounting systems typically offer a variety of report and chart types to view income and expense data by month or year. These reports can be automatically generated at certain dates and shared with specific people.
Business growth & development
Automatically calculate annual rent increases, property appreciation and depreciation, as well as manage the growth of your assets. Many of these programs also have built-in budgeting and forecasting capabilities and the ability to analyze rents based on current market rates.
Conclusion
As a small business owner, one of the most important elements of your accounting strategy is an invoicing tool. An invoicing system is useful for not just tracking your income but for also creating bills and generating reports that you can use to see how your company is performing.
Easily manage your tenant’s monthly rent. Set up payment reminders, track late payments and penalties, calculate your property taxes with advance rules.