How to set up, offline, in Quicken Deluxe for Windows, one personal account and 2 LLCs?

soumoulou

I have Quicken Classic Deluxe (Version R53.26) and use Windows 10.

I am the sole owner/member of two LLCs and all their business activities (all passive income) are reported on Schedule E, Form 1040. "LLC A" owns three rental properties named "FARM", "CONDO" & "HOUSE": (a)The "FARM" receives just one rental check per year & has only a few deductions like taxes & insurance; (b) The "CONDO" is a short term rental condo; though the rental is handled by a realtor, this rental has normal business deductions and a capital expenditure from time to time; c) the "HOUSE" is a single family residence being renovated for use as rental property. As for my second LLC, "LLC B" is rented for farmland—only two rental checks a year and a few expenses like taxes.

Each LLC will have its own banking account (for liability purposes) and I have one personal banking account—so there will be 3 Quicken Banking Accounts in total.

Thus far, I have opened, offline, my personal account in a Quicken Banking Account. I have also opened another banking account for LLC A (the more complicated of the two LLCs). These are some examples of how I am categorizing expenses for LLC A. For example, "LLC A:FARM:utilities"; another example: "LLC A:HOUSE:Capital Expenditures:Electrical or "LLC A:HOUSE:Non-Capital:Taxes" ; here's an example for the short term rental: "LLC A:CONDO:HOA Dues". Note: I specifically made a category "LLC A" in order to distinguish its activity from my personal activity (or from the activity of the second LLC), all such expenses will be show together in a merged Banking Summary Report.

Also, I am making Tax Line Assignments as I go.

Before I open a third banking account, offline, for the second LLC, I would like to know:

One: Is there a better way for me to do this?

Two: Can I keep my Quicken Personal and LLC Banking Accounts in one File?

Three: Is Quicken Classic Deluxe for windows adequate or do I need to upgrade to Premier or Business and Personal?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Tom Young

"Is there a better way for me to do this?"

I guess I'm puzzling a bit about creating that "LLC A" as a CATEGORY.

In Quicken-speak "Category" refers to an item of income or expense and, logically, there is no specific income or expense that you can identify as "LLC A." That is, there's no mental picture associated with an income like "rent" (tenant handing you a check) or expense like "taxes" (you handing a check to the taxing authorities). The top level summary of all entries within the LLC A category amounts to "the net income or loss of the "entity" LLC A.

The LLC is legally an "entity" so transactions within the entity certainly need to be gathered together, but in Quicken that is more typically handled by "Tags." So a rental income Category - something you'd probably like to see in the "overall" - might be entered as "Rent" (a Category) with Tags of "LLC A" (the legal entity) and Tags of FARM or CONDO or HOUSE (the specific property within the entity). This pattern of entry allows you to answer the question of "how much rent overall did I collect this year?" by simply looking directly at the global Rent Category.

This is your file and these are your financial records so you're allowed to do whatever you want, of course.

"Can I keep my Quicken Personal and LLC Banking Accounts in one File?"

Yes, and you should. The way you have things set up, legally, means that every single transaction and every single asset or liability, is "yours." All of this activity is going to show up in your income tax return and your Net Worth reports.

"Is Quicken Classic Deluxe for windows adequate or do I need to upgrade to Premier or Business and Personal."

With enough work and effort and attention to detail you could use Deluxe, absolutely. And using top-level "categories" of LLC A and LLC B would help insure that you ARE collecting all income and expenses within each entity, plus the volume of transactions you mention doesn't seem all that high. Premier primarily adds additional "security investing activity" tools, which isn't related to your situation. Business and Personal is specific to your situation and could provide some benefit, maybe particularly when it comes to income tax reporting, but I haven't played around with the B&P version so I can't really give a qualified opinion here.

NotACPA

While, with a number of workarounds, Deluxe can meet your needs @soumoulou I'd recommend that you upgrade to Business & Personal (formerly "Home & Business").

It's specifically designed for situations such as yours (and mine before I retired).

soumoulou

"I'm puzzling a bit about creating that "LLC A" as a CATEGORY…but in Quicken that is more typically handled by "Tags." So a rental income Category - something you'd probably like to see in the "overall" - might be entered as "Rent" (a Category) with Tags of "LLC A" (the legal entity) and Tags of FARM or CONDO or HOUSE (the specific property within the entity)".

Makes sense! Here's an example of how I am now recording transactions in my Quicken Deluxe LLC A checking account: Category: "Rents Received"; Tag: "LLC A House 1" (I assigned the tax line "Schedule E, Rents Received" and I also gave the tag a "Copy Number" of "1" in case I ever wanted to transfer this info to Turbo Tax).

Another example: Category: "Utilities", Tag: "LLC A Condo 2" (I assigned the appropriate tax line, also giving the tag a "Copy Number" of "2". Unfortunately, LLC A's House, Condo and Farm each pay for many types of utilities (all use different companies for different services, though all of them use the same power company); I'd like, easily, to total and subtotal these charges for each property at the end of the year. For example, how much did LLC A spend on Cable Company XYZ for services at the "Condo" in 2023? How about this: Category: "Utilities" with a subcategory of "XYZ"?

Thank you again…I'm getting there!