As I meet with Real Estate Investors and Developers they usually tell me “I have Fred or Sally handling my bookkeeping for the past 15 years. They key in my invoices into Quickbooks desktop, print cheques for me to sign, go to the bank to deposit the rents, and send me my financials at the end of the year. They even prepare my tax return and paper file to the CRA.”
I’m sure we all have a Fred or Sally in our life who is a dedicated real estate bookkeeper preparing a manual set of books using methods that were developed a few decades ago. The key question for Real Estate Investors and Developers is simple – is this approach to your financials going to help you proactively build real estate wealth?
Here are some of the opportunities by going with a more modern solution that is far beyond the classic manual bookkeeping approach:
- Time is Money– As we always say, time is money. If you only get a sense of how much cash your properties are generating (or bleeding!) once a year how can you take advantage of opportunities? What if you had monthly financials, return calculations, and a forecast of future performance?
- Leverage Technology Made for Real Estate – Quickbooks or Xero are great general purpose accounting software and have a place. With cloud software such as Yardi and Buildiuum you get a system that tracks information at a building and tenant level, a portal for your tenants, and an easy way to restrict access to property managers or other users. The software has come down in cost and many firms offer this software on a per unit basis versus very expensive enterprise level price tags. Yardi Breeze for example is Yardi’s version of a small to mid-market solution at the fraction of the cost of the enterprise solution.
- Accuracy – Fred or Sally are doing their level best to ensure your financials are accurate but this is still subject to natural human error. Why not leverage technology and automation to give you accurate numbers you can rely upon? After all you are making decisions for hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars!
- Advisory and Market Benchmarking – At Finalyze, our Monthly CFO Service includes the financials in a real estate cloud accounting solution paired with benchmarking and advice. Key questions we help you answer include are your returns competitive to market? Is this property worth holding or selling? Should we look at refinancing? How about bringing in additional investors to free-up your capital?
- Tax Planning and Compliance – As a registered CPA Firm with expertise in personal, corporate, and partnership tax planning and compliance we are pleased to review your current tax situation and find opportunities to minimize or defer taxes. Tax compliance goes beyond filling out forms but working within the rules to find you opportunities and strategies to build more wealth.
Fred and Sally are fantastic and have a place for general financial data processing. For savvy Real Estate Investors and Developers the cloud technology and solutions have arrived at a very reasonable cost. Finalyze goes above and beyond by being your Trusted CFO Advisor and helping you make informed real estate investment decisions that help you, your family, and investors build wealth.
Please reach out at Info@FinalyzeCFO.com to book a complimentary consultation and allow us the opportunity to be your Trusted CFO Advisor. We proudly serve Real Estate Investors, Developers, and Investment Firms across North America.