What do you use to track tenants?

Question

I am currently working for a man who owns several properties (at least 20) and I have been working closely with his wife to try to find an efficient way to track their income and expenses. Well I have tried using a spreadsheet and with the amount of properties they have, it is way too complicated.

I tried to show her QuickBooks but it has too much they won't use on it. I was thinking of trying Quicken (not the rent version because we don't like that either)

I wanted some opinions on what other products I should look into. Preferably something that does not charge on a monthly basis.

Answer 1

How about a good ol Pen and Paper you can write down how much their rent payment is and any expenses for the place their renting.

The best part there's no monthly fee.

Answer 2

Actually I would recommend sticking with Excel because out of the options you have shown I think it is the easiest.  Otherwise if the couple has that many properties tell them to hire a property management company to do all the work for them (or an accountant).  And the property management company should be able to give them everything in a nice, easy to understand format.

Answer 3

Even if Quick books has more features than they will use - they don't HAVE to use all of the features and it works quite well for the things property managers need to do.