So, I posted a question on the LandlordZONE Forums asking for suggestions of other accounting packages to try, and I’ve also done a bit more research. It sounds like I need to look at:
Right. Sage first, I think — it comes heavily recommended by real accountants, which I suppose could be a good or a bad thing…
I’m currently using a spreadsheet to keep the RTM company’s accounts, but I’m not convinced that’s the right plan in the long term. So I’m looking at the options in terms of book-keeping software to see if there’s anything out there to make my life easier.
So far I’ve just looked at Quickbooks. A few years ago, I did the book-keeping at work using this program. It’s from the same people as Quicken, and was (I remember) reasonably easy to use, so it was the obvious one to try out first. These days, it seems they have three different versions. The “Premier” version is much too expensive, at £449.95, and “Pro” is quite pricey too, at £224.95. But “SimpleStart”, their cheapest option, is a snip at at £89.95 — and even better, there’s a free cut-down version that only supports 20 customers and suppliers, which sounded like a perfect way of trying it out.
So, I downloaded it and had a go. We’ve received a few bills so far, from the solicitors who organised our RTM process (and did, I think, a pretty good job) and from the insurance company we used to get buildings insurance once we became responsible for that after the acquisition date. These bills needed to be split evenly amongst the tenants (we’d engaged the solicitor jointly), so what I wanted to do was enter the bills as liabilities and then split it into appropriate “assets” — that is, amounts owed by each tenant, leaving us with a balance of zero.
Um. No can do.
The problem is that QuickBooks SimpleStart is designed for normal companies, not oddities like an RTM company. It’s set up so that when a bill arrives, the company pays it directly from its own funds, and there’s no easy way to keep track of the fact that incoming bills need to be funneled through to “customers”, ie. the tenants. That’s not to say that it’s a bad program; it’s just not designed for the needs of an RTM company, but instead for a normal small business.
I suspect you can do something like what we need in the “Pro” version (which I think is what I used to use at work) but it seems rather expensive, especially given that we’ll never use many of its features.
Time to look at some other programs, I think.
Hello! This blog is a log of my experiences as I learn how to keep the accounts and books for a newly-formed RTM Company. I used to write computer software for Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, so I know something about accounting programs, but I’m definitely learning as I go along when it comes to property management. Often, I’ve found that it’s easier to learn new stuff if you try to explain what you’re learning to a (perhaps entirely imaginary) audience — I’ve done this when learning new programming languages to excellent effect — so I’ll keep track of what I’m doing here, and perhaps someday it will be useful to someone else too. In the meantime, hopefully it will help me keep my thoughts in order.
A little about me and our RTM Company: my name’s Giles Thomas, I live in London, and I and my three fellow leaseholders acquired the right to manage the converted Victorian Notting Hill house in which we have our flats on 30 December 2009, just over a week ago. I foolishly agreed to keep the company’s accounts… hence this new blog.
I’m sure it will help.