Rental tab not applying rent paid to the right tab

G's Gs

The Rental tab should show each of my tenants and if they've paid their rent and if it's late. My tenants send automatic payments on about the 29th of each month. When it's entered in, the Bill Reminder will ask if that's the rent bill due on the first of the next month - so the bill reminder is happy, but on the rental tab, it shows that rent as being applied to the current month… and since the next rental payment will again be at the end of the month, my tenants will look like they're late until the end of the month again. I've called in repeatedly and the agents don't seem to know how to work with this tab, unfortunately. I've been advised to CHANGE the date of the rent on the register to the 1st of the month - which would make my register wrong AND at the end/beginning of the year, cause me to report income in the wrong year for taxes.

In addition, security deposits aren't differentiated from income on the tab and if I make a return and tag it with the rental - it shows up as a new renter on the tab.

I bought this level of software because I have rentals, and have yet to find this tab useful.

arlieskory

I am having similar issues. Also, downloaded transactions are not finding the rent transactions from the rental tab.

mshiggins

Quicken's rental property features are very limited and poorly defined; but Quicken can do better than the results posted in this discussion ... if Quicken's "rules" are taken into account.

First: to clarify an incorrect interpretation of the purpose and function of Quicken "matching" an actual transaction to a Reminder. That matching is just for the purpose of determining whether the Reminder should have its "Due Next On" date advanced, meaning that specific instance of the Reminder has been satisfied and the user will not be "reminded" again until the next amount is due. The date of the Reminder is not controlling: it is always the date of the actual transaction that matters.

Second: Quicken rent payment transactions must have a Quicken Transaction Date that falls within the period to which the rent is to be applied. So, for example; if the renter is paying by the month, the rent payment transaction for the month of May must have a Quicken Transaction Date no earlier than May 1 and no later than May 31.

To deal with the fact that rent payments may have real-world Transaction Dates that do not fall within the period to which they apply, the user can employ an intermediate Quicken account - an account that has no real-world counterpart and which is used only as a temporary repository.

[NOTE 1: when a Tenant is first added in the Rent Center and assigned to a property, Quicken automatically creates a Reminder for the rent for that tenant/property. The Quicken-created rent Reminder is of dubious value and is totally out of the control of the user. I believe the Quicken-created rent Reminder should be deleted, and replaced with a Reminder manually created by the user. That user-created rent Reminder should use the exact Tenant name (created in the Rent Center) as its Payee, a rent income category with a Schedule E rent income tax line assigned, the Property Tag (assigned in the Rent Center) for the property, the exact amount of the Rent (from the Rent Center). ]

For the original problem in this discussion, I would do the following.
1.) Backup
2.) Create an intermediate rent-holding account (Checking, Cash, or even Asset should do)
3.) Delete the Quicken-created rent Reminder
4.) Manually create a new Rent Reminder (see NOTE 1 above) - have this Reminder deposit the rent in the rent-holding account created in #2. I believe this Reminder can be auto-entered on the first day of the rent period.

When actual rent checks are deposited (say in a Quicken checking account representing the real-world checking account where the rent was deposited, for example), Categorize them as a transfer FROM the intermediate rent-holding account. This will offset the rent Reminder that entered rent in the rent-holding account.

[NOTE 2: the Quicken Rent Center can display multiple periods; to get a broader picture of rents due/paid, the user can select a longer period to be displayed in the Rent Center. "Current Month" is the default - "Recent months" or "Current Year" are two of the alternatives.]

Regarding Quicken's treatment of Security Deposits:
Security deposits should be recorded on the Security Deposit tab in the Add/Edit Tenant dialog in the Quicken Rent Center. Security deposits recorded in the Add/Edit Tenant dialog are not treated as income: they are recorded in a special Quicken-created liability account named Security Deposit Liability with a Category of [Security Deposit Liability] - making them "transfers recorded back into the same account. The Category of the transaction in the Security Deposit Liability account can be changed to a Transfer INTO the Quicken account where the actual security deposit is recorded ... such transactions should not affect income or the Rent Center.
[If the user does not record the Security Deposit in the Add/Edit Tenant dialog, the same end result can be accomplished by manually creating a liability account for the Security Deposit and using a Transfer into that account when recording the actual Quicken Security Deposit transaction.]
When refunding the Security Deposit, categorize the refund as a transfer FROM the Security Deposit Liability account.

[NOTE 3: if any of the Security Deposit is retained by the landlord, the amount retained IS income.]

-JP