Should I sync rental property checking accounts and loan accounts or enter them in manually?

omega4e · October 2020

I have a handful of properties that I am trying to set up in Quicken- setting up each property with checking account, property asset account and property loan account. I currently have 1 property and I enter in all transactions manually and another that I have the checking account and property asset account synced to the bank.

Issue 1: In the synced loan account I cannot see the payment detail transactions.

Issue 2: The loan payment transaction is correctly syncing through the checking account and the loan payment (coming from the checking account) is posting against the rental property as an expense. However, I would like to see the interest and principal split. How does that work with syncing? How does the synced checking account know to also record the loan payment in the loan account? When I deactivate the loan account I can see the payment detail transactions but, it only shows the opening balance and no payment history, but the outstanding loan amount is correctly synced with the bank loan account.

What's the best way to navigate through this? I do not want to have to manually enter in every transaction. Should I not sync the loan account and only the checking account? If I do that how can I have the loan payment post in the loan account? thanks

Frankx · October 2020

Hi @omega4e,

I would strongly suggest that you continue to "sync" (or "connect & download transactions) your rental property bank account(s) in Quicken. There is no downside, in my view, to doing this and it will save you time and be potentially more accurate than manually entering all those transactions.

On the issue of the "property loan account" I would suggest that you not "connect" your loan account(s) because this approach will potentially limit your ability to properly track your loan and related activity, since with the download approach there is no flexibility in classifying and/or allocating the downloaded transactions. In addition, there really isn't any significant time that would be saved by using the download approach, so the negatives of not being able to modify downloaded transactions, would outweigh the positive of saving a little time.

Let me know if you have any followups.

Frankx

omega4e · October 2020

Thanks @Frankx. Can I message you offline? I'm thinking i'll need an hour with someone who understands quicken rental property (Quicken support hasn't been that great)- happy to compensate for the hour.

Tom Young · October 2020

"I have a handful of properties that I am trying to set up in Quicken- setting up each property with checking account, property asset account and property loan account."

Are you saying that each property is associated with a different checking account? That seems a little cumbersome and potentially more expensive if each bank charges account fees. Is that really the case, and necessary?

"I currently have 1 property and I enter in all transactions manually and another that I have the checking account and property asset account synced to the bank."

I don't understand how you could have a property asset setup for downloading from a bank. What's being downloaded into the asset?

"Issue 1: In the synced loan account I cannot see the payment detail transactions."

As @Frankx said, downloading loan information into a loan Account has its drawbacks. If you set up the loan as a "manual" loan using Quicken's loan "wizard" Quicken will prepare an amortization schedule and, if you set it up that way, will make the upcoming payment entries directly into you checking Account with offsets to interest expense and loan pay down. The subsequent downloading of information from the checking account should then match to the previously entered payment.

I'm not a big fan of having downloaded information entered "for me" into Quicken, (though I do allow that that in some cases), particularly when it comes to entries into my checking Account. As soon as I'm aware of a bill I enter it into the checking Account, dated some time in the future when the bill is due. That way I have excellent information for cash management. If I don't do that I don't know such basic information as "how much cash do I think I'll have on hand two weeks from now?"

Frankx · October 2020

HI again omega4e,

I appreciate the compliment, but unfortunately I am not able to provide that kind of assistance.

Take care,

Frankx

Should I sync rental property checking accounts and loan accounts or enter them in manually?

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