How many IPs do you have

Does your accountant charge you for each property they complete for your tax return?

 

Yes....but I pay less than $1250 per annum....I do all the leg work and get it into spreadsheets so it is easy for her. She get the admin to enter it in and she reviews and ensures deductions and everything is correct.

I then also look over in detail...

 

More improvement there
Bills don't need to be paid by yourself as well. If you're paying your PM 5-7% then have them do the bills/paperwork as well.

My PMs pay all of Rates, Strata, Water, Land tax, and Emergency service levy. At settlement your solicitor can direct these to your PM, or you can call the OSR or Council and direct them there. The PM should send you the receipts with your annual statement and you can scan and file them all in one session at end of fin year.

Or instead of scanning- ensure your PM only sends you electronic documents, with scanned receipts. In a way it's outsourcing but they don't mind as posting things is just as hard. Less scanning for you, and easy filing into dropbox or whatever system you want to use.

Ideally you want to get to the stage where you are free of this stuff, once you retire/semi-retire you can travel and not be tied down and things take care of themselves.

 

For those that don't like paperwork consider getting a virtual PA or book keeper. I'm finally going down this route as I hate paperwork and my business is getting more and more complex. Tracking paperwork for the GST/margin scheme, multiple mortgages, unsecured loans, LOCs, 4 employees etc is just getting too much.
We are also moving to Xero for cloud based book keeping rather than Excel as it can do BAS etc

 

If you're using Dropbox or other online/cloud based systems, make sure you backup to a different location on a regular basis and use two step authentication for security - would hate to lose all of those documents.

 

So true. 2 stage auth and a good password is important.

I recently had my steam (games) account hacked and it was only 2 stage that saved me.

For backups you can sign up for version history, but I also regularly zip my virtual filing cabinet and back it up. Just in case the syncing ever fails or an accidental deletion happens.

 

I've got heaps more than this. The paperwork is manageable. Hate tax time though. Two portfolios over two entities and a Business as well.

 

Wow, if you have 4 employees You need a pa/bookkeeper and a nanny next

MTR

 

I need to sort out my paperwork, my accountant pretty much said if I don't get my act together it's going to cost me dearly, it did last financial year.
He also told me that his developers provide all the info on spreadsheet, I suppose the boxes I dumped on his desk was not a good look, yes, slap on wrist.

MTR

 

0. Don't even own my own home.

Don't think I will ever own them. I'm a get land, do something sell kind of guy. Auction on the 25th for an 800sqm block with a knockdown house with a min lot size of 200sqm.

If successful build 3, keep 1 to live in, sell 2. Rinse, repeat.

 

A very good plan

 

No investment properties yet unfortunately, I'm still learning and I only have my ppor which has had good growth in the 4 years I have had it.

 

Really need to get finance sorted though. The sale of my last project has been slightly delayed . It happens. If I don't get it another one will come up.

As a planner I'm pretty across the legislation so I can find useful nuggets around the place.

It's great. No emotional attachment, no concerns over tenants, deal with people I deal with through work. Never have to speak to property managers.

 

3 Filing cabinets, Still in the print email and file mode. My accountant although good still uses paper and pencil,old school.

 

We're in the process of purchasing number 8 - finance has been approved, so I chose 8.

Agree with most others - paperwork is okay (we self manage) but not a fan of tax time!

 

I find that a property might go 12 months with no problems then all of a sudden I'm swamped with a couple of new hot water systems, air conditioners and a fence needing replacement. I find that if I respond to PM email requests on multiple devices its easy to lose track of what's been carried out, number of quotes and what's still outstanding.
The actual paperwork is okay but managing the pms sometimes gets missed.

 

Didn't expect this many replies, thanks everyone and sorry OP for the thread steal

 

No worries Daniel007, I need to learn a lot on how to manage the paperwork so i'm glad you asked

 

Another point regarding managing many IPs is ensure all correspondence is via email even if you phone a PM. I had an insurance issue with a tenant claim and the email trail was crucial in proving that I had asked for work to be carried out on several occasions.

 

Sort of same boat here but I do spreadsheets. A book keeper is also cheaper than getting my accountant to sort through it all. The book keeper and Xero should make everything much more professional and workable - fingers crossed.
Our 4 employees are me, DH and my parents . This is due to the way we have structured our SMSF, Trusts and income distributions.