How to handle Subdividing Costs for rental property?

Question

[Note: I hope this is the correct discussion area…]

I own a single 10 acre property with two houses (R.Unit01 and R.Unit02), both currently rented.  I am subdividing the property into two equal pieces in order to sell each one individually next year.  The subdividing work (surveying, drawing up the new boundaries and documenting them for the legal work) has associated costs. The legal work (new deeds, registration with the city, etc.) will have additional associated costs as well.

I am not sure how to categorize these expenses in Quicken as they come in.

Since I (the manager/owner) commissioned this work, do I categorize them as "Rental Expenses:Management fees" or "Rental Expenses:Legal and other professional fees"?

I am not a bookkeeper, and can make a case to myself for using either one.  I there a correct way tax-wise and/or bookkeeping-wise to expense these?

volvogirl · Answer

You can use Tags.  Enter a tag like Unit A and Unit B on each transaction.   Then you can report on the tag.   When you enter a transaction you either put the tag in the tag column or you can enter it at the end of the category by using a forward slash / to designate the tag.  You can add a column for Tag if it's not showing. To add columns to the register

Select "Account Actions".

Select "Register Columns..."

Or in newer versions you can click the gear icon in the upper right hand corner of the account register to get a list of available columns. Click to put a checkmark in the missing column(s). (Also explore the new columns, added to your version of Quicken, if they might be helpful for your needs.)

Hestia · Answer

I have the same question.  I have 2 rental properties and want to enter their income and expenses so that I can see the net income of each property.  How do I do that, example: admin expenses for unit A and admin expenses for unit B.  Thanks.

SilverGlider · Answer

Thanks, I had considered them as a Quicken question/how to correctly enter them into Quicken, thinking that some other landlord using the Rental version had worked this out and I could benefit from their experience.  I had not considered it as a tax-specific issue.  I will try posting my question on the TTAX site as well.