Does anyone do bookkeeping for a lettings agent? I want to set it up on Quickbooks and am thinking of the best way. Do you have separate records for tenant and landlord or just one for the property. If only one how does that work with money coming in and out? Do you do deductions for landlord maintenance from the property or just a general expense code? I would like to be able to track income into and out of the property. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very well but hopefully if you do it already you will know what I'm talking about. Thanks.
I do one for a lettings company, the company has it's own software that deals with the landlord /tennants etc, and their software produces monthly statements to the landlord to show what money is coming and out etc.
The what I have done in 'Customers' I have set up each landlord and tenant as a customer and just taken the figures from their software into QB's. Although it seems as though you are double handling it, you are not, because their software is purely for lettings, it does not do any bookkeeping/accountancy stuff.
To track the income in and out of the property their software does that.
Have they got proper software that can handle Lettings? The only reason for asking is if they are just trying to run their business on a shoe string and don't have any software in place, it will end up a nightmare, I know of someone who already has this problem and the accountants have a nightmare each year reconciling it all.
They should also have a normal bank account which the office expenses go out of, say for instance stationery and signs etc, and they should also have a bank account for 'Client Deposit funds', this is where the tenants pay into and then after the lettings fee the letting agent pays the Landlord. This is something that needs to be checked as its imperative they have 2 bank accounts.
Are they a new Letting agent or one that has been going for a long time and may have possibly had a previous bookkeeper?
Thanks Amanda. I took over from another bookkeeper who was using MoneyManager and I'm not getting on with it at all which is why I am changing it to Quickbooks. I have no idea if they have software, it's very organised though. I'm given the statements that are sent out to the landlord which details the rent received, deductions, VAT and the money paid to the landlord, and then I see the rent received on the bank statements. I will ask if they use software but even if they do I want to be able to check that I have received all the data to enter so I would want to be able to double check. If you put both landlord and tenant is as customers what do you put on the invoices? Obviously rent for the tenant. On the landlord the commission and any maintenance would go on there but how do you record the rent? I think the current system as the landlords set up as suppliers. I was thinking of setting up the lettings as a separate quickbooks file and then having another one for the rest of the business (just so that the rent (ie landlords money) does not go through the accounts. The commission would go into the other system as a single amount every month taken from the lettings.
If you have time would it be possible to call you sometime today just to go over how it works? I want to set it up right first time. Thanks.
Hi Princess I also do the bookkeeping for a letting agent. As Amanda says you need to ensure that they have completely seperate bank accounts for the "Office" Account and the "Clients" Account. The Client Account is subject to a completely separate and independant review and reconciliation and the relevant monies have to be held on deposit. Assuming that they are ARLA Regulated they will be subject to inspection to ensure that this is the case. In my clients case the Client account is held on a completely different piece of software specifically for the Lettings Industry and I use SAGE for the office account. Hope that is of some help to you.
they do have separate accounts, it's all fine in that respect. and the owner is extremely organised but he runs the business totally separate from the bookkeeping system, he doesn't want to get involved in the accounts. I want to make sure that the accounts reflect the rest of the business so want to keep track of all the rent for myself.
I think I should keep the lettings on a separate quickbooks file. the only time there will be any overlap is at the year end when there maybe some rent that has come in that hasn't yet been paid out to teh landlord but I will be able to tell how much that is and put it in the main company file.
I'm thinking of putting each Property in as a Class in Quickbooks, then I will see if there is any balance left over at the end of the month for each property. I can do P&L reports by class. It will be a mess with the number of properties but hopefully most of them will have a zero balance most of the time so won't appear on the report.
Great post. I was about to post this kind of question. Thanks for sharing your answers. It gives us more information as well as it helps us to understand more about bookkeeping.
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kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
