How to show rental property income and expenses

KenD3882

We have a property management company that takes care of our new rental property.  Looking for the easiest way in Quicken 2019 to track the income and expenses.  It's really very simple:  Monthly direct deposit to our checking account, which is the result of a few deductions like commissions and expenses like service calls or cleaning.  I was going to do a "split" with the expenses.  I have a category called "{rental property name} Expenses" but it won't total all of the expenses in groups.  For instance "commissions" is just mixed in with everything else like the bill for the plumber we called on our own, etc.  Thanks in advance for any input.

oldngrmpy1

Though I don't do any rental property with Quicken, I would think it would be prudent to request an itemized statement from your property mgmt. company for expenses and income regarding your property. This would be beneficial for tax purposes, and also for you in order to do the "Split" you will need in order to track your expenses properly on Quicken. Ideally this should be done monthly.

mshiggins

From C. D. Bales:

"I was going to do a 'split' with the expenses".

"I have a category called '{rental property name} Expenses' but it won't total all of the expenses in groups".

Assuming I understand you correctly, why would you expect one category to provide sub totals for - what clearly seem to be - multiple different categories? Create separate categories for each expense type you want to track (*).

For the rent income transaction: have one split line for the gross rent amount, followed by a separate split line for each expense you want to track

- expenses paid by the property management company - (management fee, plumbing, gardening, etc.). The net amount of that split transaction will be the amount you deposit in your checking account. [I'm assuming your property management company notifies you of the specifics of the deductions they take from your gross rent.]

If you pay some of the expenses directly (the management company does not pay them, then deduct them from the rent they send you), then record those expenses separately from the rent deposit split transaction.

[ (*) You can certainly have a Parent category called something like "Rental Property Expenses", with Child categories such as "Gardening", "Management Fee", "Plumbing", etc.. But you don't need a unique parent expense category with multiple child categories for every property - use the same gardening category ("Rental Property Expenses: Gardening"), for example, for every property ... but Tag each transaction with the appropriate Property Tag.]

KenD3882

I was trying to split out amounts into different categories to keep track of things.  The direct deposit check that goes into my checking account is the end product of rent paid minus all of the deductions from the property management company.  Let's say that amount is $1800 on a given month.  I enter that as {name of property} Rental Income. 

I was trying to keep track of those deductions from the Net rent.  So I might enter $2000 in stead of $1800, and then split out $100 into a "Property Management Fee" expense category, but wasn't sure how to show all of the other expenses, like carpet cleaning for move in, or changing locks.  I already have a misc expanse category for that property and I guess I could lump it all in there...but I was hoping to separate the deductions  and property management costs from all of the other expenses. 

I wanted to be able to pull a report that would show the amounts and deductions as related items.  Anyway, I've since decided to just enter the amount going into my bank and not worry about the deductions.  Only my tax guy seems to think it matters.  LOL.  In a way, it's like it's not really my money because it's like they are charging a surcharge I'm getting what I'm getting as a final income payment.  

Beijing Mac

I've created an account for each property that is a simple cash account.  I use it to duplicate the monthly statement from the rental company (short term vacation rentals).  This way I have the data of various expense activity with the correct category and rental income.  Then any activity in my checking account (check paid to rental management company or check rec'd from rental management company) is a transfer to this activity account and that enables me to reconcile this activity account.  

I elected to create a separate account for each property and I tag each activity entry with the property tag.  I could have also created a single account and tagged the entries with the appropriate property tag.