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Property Management and Trust Accounting

Christine S
Oct 30, 2021 1:45 PM
Joined Jun, 2021 6 posts

Hello,

I am currently setting up my first client as a property manager and having a hard time with the trust accounting structure. I have a separate bank account and am in the process of setting up a separate merchant account thru Elavon.
OR said ask my accountant on how to set up best, but she said to have a separate account (bank and cc) for each client. I am not going to do that -will just have 1 trust bank and cc account and need help with the whole structure and how it integrates with Airbnb and OR. VRBO seems easy bc they do not take my payments anymore since I am API integrated. OR said they are working on the PM module, but I need to set this up asap. Will QB integration help with this? Want to KISS. Looking for recommendations please on the whole picture. TIA

Paul W
Nov 2, 2021 12:19 PM
OR Team Member Joined Jun, 2009 825 posts

Hi Christine,

We do not have a full trust accounting system where we show you what money is held in liability. That's something we're working on for the future but isn't in the system right now.

Our PM module is designed to make it really easy to calculate how much you owe the owner (and yourself as the PM) on a regular monthly basis. It keeps track for what commission you've earned, what expenses need to be reimbursed and the owner should have remitted each month. There are a lot of settings and options surrounding that, but at the core, that's what the PM area does. You then have tools to email out those statements and record payouts as well. Payouts and statements are separate. You can generate statement without doing a payout, though most of the time they go together. You can also automatically sync payouts into QuickBooks so that there is a "check to print" or an "unpaid bill" recorded in your QuickBooks that you then use QuickBooks to send the actual money.

In terms of QuickBooks integration, only that final payouts part is synced over to QuickBooks. The other QB thing we do is sync booking and payment data to QB which become invoices and paments on the QB side. I highly highly recommend watching this QB video as it explains everything you can do with the QB integration:

https://www.ownerrez.com/support/articles/quickbooks-how-syncing-works

Again, to be clear, that does not provide trust accounting.

Our PM system assumes you have an Escrow bank account and an Operations (or "Primary") bank account. When you get paid for bookings by guests, that money flows to Escrow. At the end of the month, when you generate statements for owners and yourself (as the PM) money is then moved out of Escrow. When you pay yourself, that money is transferred from Escrow to your Operations account.

Expenses that need to be reimbursed can also be recorded and those are factored into the monthly statements. Expenses can be made from Escrow or Operations depending on how you paid for them, and the system will know whether the money neesd to be reimbursed to you or not. Only expenses that need to be reimbursed (by the owner) should be recorded in OR, not all expense for your business. If it's an expense that you paid for for yourself (eg. printer paper) then you don't need to record that in OR. Only expenses that affect the owner should be recorded in OR.

Ocean Zen
Feb 25, 2023 1:04 AM
Joined Jun, 2022 70 posts

Christine,

I have included this issue and other PM issues in the list mentioned below. I am trying to create urgency with addressing Quickbooks Integration / Accounting issues in OR by having all key stakeholders join together to create a louder voice. To do so I have tried to summarize all the open issues in this theme and have created one master feature request that I am asking everyone that would like to see this addressed cast a vote for so we concentrate our voting and allow OR to see the magnitude of the need. I do have some ideas for a rapid resolution but at this time want to focus on identifying and prioritizing the issues/problems and have OR engage in prioritizing this fix.

The comprehensive thread is that this Feature request (full link below). If you feel this is a need PLEASE VOTE. If you have any additions, corrections, or comments please reply and I will try to keep the top post updated.

https://www.ownerrez.com/forums/go/70573

Thank you for your support and lets get a roadmap for this once and for all!!

Manel