First one help!
Hello all,
I am new to this so please forgive my ignorance. I am about to get a property and want to rent it ut. I will manage it myself at first until I have a few under my belt and it will be more worthwhile. My question is how do you send monthly bills/rent due notices? Just type something on your PC and send it out? Or are there certain forms you can mail and retain for your records. Als what is the best way to keep records for myself and my tennant, am I supposed to send any tax statements at the end of the year for them?
Thanks for all your great posts.
[addsig]
Good Question, I would like to know the same thing
they have software programs design just for landlord tenant accounting. Check out best buy or comp usa.
I'm a newbie too, but one idea I heard was to type up the bill on your PC, and mail it along with a stamped return envelope. Ask the tenants to postdate the check to the 1st (or whenever it is due) and mail it back right away.
Check out the "Rent Right" software offered on this site (Click on the Shop tab).
You can download a free demo to see if this product meets your need.
I think the best method for collecting rent is to give them a stack of self addressed envelopes at the lease signing. Make sure they know that if you don't have your rent by the third of the month, you'll tack on a late fee. You shouldn't have to remind them that rent is due, it should already be on their mind at the end of the month.
As far as tracking income and expenses, I use Excel spreadsheets.
I have rental agreement forms, late notice forms, etc. Send me a private e-mail and I will attach them to an e-mail. A good bookkeeping software that I use is QuickBooks from Intuit, which will satisfy every bookkeeping need, either for rentals, retail or whatever. They sell it for about $ 300.00, but it is worth the price.
Quote:
On 2003-03-03 16:39, drgnstr wrote:
Hello all,
I am new to this so please forgive my ignorance. I am about to get a property and want to rent it ut. I will manage it myself at first until I have a few under my belt and it will be more worthwhile. My question is how do you send monthly bills/rent due notices? Just type something on your PC and send it out? Or are there certain forms you can mail and retain for your records. Als what is the best way to keep records for myself and my tennant, am I supposed to send any tax statements at the end of the year for them?
Thanks for all your great posts.
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The other posts are good, but I am a lazy landlord. I will just add this tip.
What I do is give the tenant my bank deposit slips and tell them that they are to deposit the rent in my bank account on the due date. I specify this in my rental agreement. I then have a instant receipt of when the deposit was made and its hard for the tenant to argue that "the rent's in the mail." I can check the deposits in my account via web service since my bank offers webbased banking. Here is another tip. If you have alot of rentals, don't make the rental dollar amounts the same (change it by $1) and make the due date different. That way you can easily distinguish which tenant has paid their rent. If I don't have it in my bank account on the specified day, I send a late notice out immediately. If you get a tenant that calls you and says that they have deposited the rent in the bank (after you sent the letter), just apologize and tell them your computer automatically sends out late notices if the rent is not paid on the due date. I also add a stiff late penalty to the maximum allowed by law. The faster you detect a problem tenant, the easier (and less costly) it is to get them out of the property.
Hope that helps,
Taxjunkie
Thanks everyone for all the great input. I knew I would find an answer here! Thanks again.
[addsig]