Should You Use QuickBooks For Rental Properties?

Managing rental properties comes with a lot of numbers; rent payments, expenses, maintenance costs, depreciation, taxes and more. And, if you're anything like us, you’ve likely wished for a simpler way to track it all. Spreadsheets, you've realised, just don't cut it.

And so, when head over to our trusty friend Google for professional accounting software it'll likely bring QuickBooks. After all, it is one of the most popular accounting software programs out there. But is it the right tool for landlords?

In this article, we’ll dive into how to handle rental property accounting with QuickBooks, guide you through setup and best practices, and compare its strengths and limitations against landlord-focused software. By the end, we'll answer the question, can QuickBooks for landlords? Or should you start exploring specialized software like Landlord Studio.

You can view a direct comparison between QuickBooks for rentals and Landlord Studio here.

Contents

• Can QuickBooks be used for Rental Properties?
• How to Set up QuickBooks for Rentals
• The Limitations of QuickBooks for Rental Properties
• Using Landlord Studio with QuickBooks for Rental Property Accounting
• Landlord Studio’s Reports
• Final Notes

Can You Use QuickBooks For Rental Properties?

Short answer, yes. You can use QuickBooks for rentals in several ways, including to track income and expenses associated with your rental property portfolios.

The long answer, however, isn't quite so simple. QuickBooks is primarily designed for small to midsize businesses. The same issues that make spreadsheets unsuitable also make QuickBooks a challenge when it comes to handling rental income and expenses. Essentially, when tracking income and expenses for your rentals, you need to keep your finances for each property separate, ideally on a unit-by-unit basis. In fact, you almost need to treat each property as an independent business.

In terms of using spreadsheets, this means having a separate sheet for each property, which can quickly get out of hand. And for QuickBooks it means setting up multiple classes, customizing your chart of accounts to align with the Schedule E form, using the customer class for tracking tenants, and navigating a number of other system hacks. QuickBooks, in short, is not designed for managing multiple accounts and as you add property's it can quickly become a mess.

Unless you’re skilled or have plenty of experience with QuickBooks, you may be better off using purpose-built landlord accounting software and skipping this stress and mess entirely.

Landlord accounting software will also often offer property management features, such as customizable reports, rental applications, tenant screening and online rent collection.

How To Set Up QuickBooks For Your Rental Property

If you do decide to use Quickbooks for rental property accounting, follow these steps to set up your account and start entering rent payments.

Setting up:

1. Add your business bank account.
2. Create your Tenants as Customers.
3. Configure your properties as Classes.
4. Set up your Chart of Accounts using the Schedule E categories.
5. Select your income types (Rent, Late Fees, Pet Fees) as Products.
6. Set up recurring invoices for Rent Payments.

To enter rent received:

1. Click on the customers’ menu –  and select Receive Payments to begin entering your rent receipts.
2. Choose the cash receipt account from the accounts dropdown list.
3. Select the appropriate tenant from the Customer list.
4. Enter the amount of the rent payment. If you are inputting rent for one tenant only, click “OK” to save the receipt. If you have rent from more than one tenant, select “Group with other undeposited funds” to move on to the next cash receipt entry.

It’s worth exploring some tutorials on Youtube that can walk you through the setup process.

The Limitations Of Using QuickBooks For Rental Properties

QuickBooks, as already mentioned, is the leading accounting software for small businesses. But, when it comes to using QuickBooks for rentals there are too many limitations to ignore, making your accounting life harder than it needs to be, and lacking essential industry relevant features.

The first limitation of using QuickBooks for a rental property is it’s difficult to set up and easy to make a mess of. There’s always a learning curve when adopting new software but this can be particularly difficult when the software isn’t actually designed for your purpose. As QuickBooks isn’t designed with landlords in mind, you need an even better understanding of the program before it will start saving you time.

The second major limitation is that QuickBooks doesn’t have industry-specific features. For example, although it facilitates invoice payments, it doesn’t have a tenant portal to allow your tenants to view historical and upcoming payments or set up automated online rent payments. In addition, it doesn’t have the functionality to send templated emails to tenants or automate rent reminders. Nor does QuickBooks have features like built-in tenant screening.

Finally, since QuickBooks is not targeted toward landlords, the support documentation and tutorials don’t provide industry-specific tips and there are limited educational materials to help you utilize the platform to grow your portfolio.

It’s for these reasons that more and more landlords are switching to property-specific software like Landlord Studio.

Why Landlords Prefer Purpose-Built Accounting Software over QuickBooks for Real Estate

‍Landlord Studio allows you to track your finances at the property and unit level for granular insights and easy tax reporting. Plus, it's default income and expense categories are in-line with IRS requirements already, no complex customizations needed.

Other landlord accounting features include differentiating between rent and other forms of income, setting reminders, automating rent collection and income tracking, and keeping all your relevant documents and receipts organized in one place.

Using Landlord Studio Instead Of QuickBooks For Rental Property Management

Improved organization and better, more tailored software solutions can mitigate (if not solve) many of the problems landlords face. As a result, landlords can streamline the management of their rentals.

Automation

With Landlord Studio, you can automate time-consuming tasks and communications, such as rent reminders and tenant auto-pay. Plus, you can track income and expenses on an organizational, property, or unit level.

Reporting Designed For Landlords

With the countless rental property details landlords are forced to juggle, organized reporting is key to your success.

With Landlord Studio you can instantly generate over 15+ real estate specific reports, including your Schedule E reports, rent roll reports, occupancy reports, and rent ledgers and more.

SD House Guys, a company that buys houses for cash in San Diego, believes that proper digital reporting is what enables their rental property business to thrive. "We have 13 units, which means we need automated tools and reporting for our property management. Without them we would be incredibly disorganized and really not be able to get much done."

Track Leases and Tenants

You can track your leases and occupancy rates and store lease documents. Landlord Studio keeps everything organized, including by categorizing your expenses. You can store all the relevant documentation and receipts in the same place., so you never have to go looking for them again.

Scalable

Landlord Studio is not only easy to use but will scale with you as your portfolio grows. It does this by using a simple design and user interface along with industry-specific features that will optimize your property management processes.

An Emphasis On Customer Support

Finally, Landlord Studio is committed to providing the best customer support. This ensures you’re able to set up your accounts quickly and make the of all the available features.

This will minimize the amount of time you spend on your accounting and ensure your books are accurate and up to date. Landlord Studio is constantly developing new features and implementing product improvements based on customer feedback.

Using Landlord Studio Alongside QuickBooks

Landlord Studio helps you create a streamlined workflow, minimizing the time you spend managing your rental accounts. Once you consider the convenience of industry-specific features like automated rent reminders, lease management, rent collection, and reminders, it’s clear that Landlord Studio is the best solution for the day-to-day management of your rentals.

Landlord Studio is available on desktop, iOS, and Android, making managing rentals on the go easier than ever.

With that said, there’s a reason why QuickBooks is the leading personal accounting software. It’s an excellent solution for tracking your business’s income and expenses. This is why some landlords (typically those who have other sources of income as well as rental properties) choose to use QuickBooks in conjunction with Landlord Studio. Combining the two allows them to gain a complete overview of both their personal finances and their real estate accounts.

To help you use both together effectively, we’ve developed some advanced reports that you can export from Landlord Studio as .pdf or .csv files. You can save these to your device or send them straight to your accountant from the app.

About Landlord Studio’s Reports

We currently have more than 15 reports in Landlord Studio and are constantly improving these and adding new ones to the system. Every report is fully customizable and can be filtered by property and unit, income category, expense category, and date range.

Additionally, our accountant view feature allows you to invite your accountant to view your accounts and run any of your financial reporting. This not only makes tax time easier, but by giving your accountant the tools to review your business financials you enable them to better help you achieve your long-term financial goals.

A Few of Our Reports Include:

• Profit and Loss (P&L)
• Schedule E Report
• Income Expense Statement
• Income Expense by Category
• Overdue Rent Payments
• Reminders
• Mileage
• Net Worth Report
• Occupancy Report
• Overdue and Upcoming Expenses
• Payments Made (Lease & Category)
• Rent Ledger
• Rent Roll
• Tenant Directory
• Plus More+

Exporting Reports to Excel

On iOS, you can export your Profit and Loss report as an Excel file.

To do this:

• Go to the “Reports” page
• Tap on “Report Type”
• Scroll to the bottom
• Tap on “Export to Excel”

Importing Your Excel Report to QuickBooks

For detailed instructions on importing excel files to QuickBooks head over to their help page here: QuickBooks Support

Final Thoughts: Should You Use QuickBooks For Rentals?

Good bookkeeping is the backbone of any business. Whether you choose to use property management software like Landlord Studio or generic accounting software like QuickBooks or Xero, it’s vital you organize your books properly and keep careful records of income and expenses.

This is important because it gives you a better understanding of your property’s performance and ROI. It also allows you to accurately calculate your claimable expenses – a nearly impossible task if you leave this to the end of the year. Finally, if you are audited by the IRS or another tax body, you’ll have accurate, detailed accounts with all the necessary documents.

Landlord Studio allows you to quickly and easily track rental income and expenses, generate professional reports, reconcile with your bank, and more. It’s a great alternative to Quickbooks for landlords.

Related Articles

• The Complete Guide To Tax Deductible Expenses For Rental Properties
• A Breakdown Of Your Schedule E Categories
• How To Track Rental Property Expenses On The Go
• Our Top Bookkeeping Tips for DIY Landlords

Should You Use Quickbooks For Rentals: FAQs

Is QuickBooks good for rentals?

You can use QuickBooks to track rental income and expenses—treating each property as a “class” or sub-customer allows you to separate finances on a unit-by-unit basis. However, because it’s designed for general small-to-midsize businesses, there’s a steeper learning curve to set everything up just right for rentals, and you won’t get landlord-specific workflows or tenant portals without custom workarounds.

How to set up QuickBooks for landlords?

1. Add your business bank account in Banking > Chart of Accounts.
2. Create each tenant as a Customer under Sales > Customers.
3. Configure properties as “Classes” (Company Settings > Categories > Classes) so you can run P&L reports per property.
4. Customize your Chart of Accounts to mirror Schedule E categories (e.g., Mortgage Interest, Repairs).
5. Set up Products/Services for rent, late fees, pet fees, etc.
   Create recurring invoices for monthly rent payments under Sales > Recurring Transactions.

Can I use QuickBooks to collect rent?

Yes—if you enable QuickBooks Payments, you can email invoices to tenants and let them pay online via credit card or ACH. Once they pay, the funds automatically flow into your QuickBooks bank register. Note that you must use one Payments account per QuickBooks company file.

Can I use QuickBooks for property management?

To a limited extent. You can record rent receipts, vendor invoices, and track maintenance expenses by using sub-customers or locations/classes for each property. However, QuickBooks lacks a built-in tenant portal, online lease signing, or maintenance-ticket system—features you’d find in dedicated property-management software.

What is the best property management software for small landlords?

For small portfolios (often under 50 units), the platforms that consistently top “best of” lists is Landlord Studio: Real-estate-specific reports (Schedule E, rent rolls), automations, mobile apps.

Read Best Property Management Software for Small Landlords

Can you use Excel for property management?

Yes. Many new landlords start with an Excel template to track rent and expenses. It’s free and flexible, but as you add properties and tenants, it can become hard to maintain accuracy, automate reminders, or generate professional reports. Moving to dedicated software removes manual work and reduces errors