General Accounting FAQs

Transaction matching rules do not support every type of transaction in the TurboTenant Accounting system. Currently, transaction matching rules are supported for Revenue, Expense, Fixed Asset Purchase, and Transfer Between Accounts transaction types. You can also automate splitting transactions and ignoring transactions with transaction matching rules.
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At this time, you cannot use transaction matching rules to automate Net Income, Owner Contribution or Distribution, Security Deposit, Refund Received or Issued, or Credit Card Payment transactions.

TurboTenant Accounting is based in and designed for real estate investors in the United States. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that all the functionality and integrations will work the same way in other countries or that our reporting will be structured appropriately. For example, you would most likely need to update your Chart of Accounts to match other countries' tax reporting requirements better.
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While not necessarily insurmountable, this presents a series of challenges for users not based in the U.S. (different address formatting; mostly US banks are supported for transaction import; currency is USD only at this time) that may be especially difficult while also needing to conform to specific audit requirements.
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There are a few primary barriers for international users. First, our property addresses are structured in a US format with city, state, and zip codes as required fields. You can enter whatever you like in the first line of the address field, though, and that can be edited at any time. Similarly, you can update the property image. So you can get around this without much trouble; a potentially inaccurate address doesn't impact the accounting or reporting functionality.
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Another barrier is connecting to your financial accounts. TurboTenant Accounting connects to two different data providers (Plaid and Yodlee) to securely import transactions from your bank account to TurboTenant Accounting. Both companies primarily support United States banks, but we have seen some Canadian financial institutions supported. This really comes down to what bank you use and whether or not Plaid or Yodlee supports it. You are welcome to test it out, or let me know what banks you use, and I can try to look it up, too.
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We do have a solution for users whose financial institutions are not supported. If you can export your transaction data, we can upload that information in place of a direct connection to the bank. This skips the question of connecting to the accounts and lends itself well to a batch bookkeeping process. This is your best bet if we can't connect to your bank directly.
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Finally, the TurboTenant Accounting system only supports/displays in US Dollars—there is no ability to switch the currency.

The TurboTenant Accounting software is primarily aimed at the residential side of the market (for example, the default expense categories match the IRS Schedule E) and does not feature commercial-specific automation. For example, we do not have any features to help you manage triple net reconciliation, common area maintenance, or send automated lease/payment reminders.
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That said, at its core, our system is property-by-property double-entry accounting. You can add to the Chart of Accounts, make manual journal entries, and quickly pull property-by-property reports. We, therefore, could be used for your needs, but it comes down to the importance of the commercial-specific features to you.

The TurboTenant Accounting system allows you to upload and attach transaction receipts. However, it does not scan the receipt to extract information or automatically categorize the transaction for you.
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Most users keep their books using an imported feed of transactions from their operating bank accounts, so typically, we have the date, amount, and transaction description already available.
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You can add a receipt to the transaction by uploading an existing file or image from local storage or importing it via web address if it is hosted elsewhere.

Currently, TurboTenant Accounting does not include check writing or invoicing capabilities. The system does not move money in any way (sending or receiving). TurboTenant Accounting is best positioned to look backward at what has happened in your rental property portfolio and categorize it appropriately for tax time.
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This means that TurboTenant Accounting allows you to choose the best method of invoicing, bill pay, and rent collection for your particular setup. Each transaction will hit your operating bank account, creating a withdrawal or deposit. Those transactions are imported to TurboTenant Accounting and presented to you for categorization with the correct transaction type, property, and accounts.

We separate those reports into three categories to track various aspects of your rental property business portfolio. What is most important to the investor varies from person to person, so we try to include a variety of reporting views.
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The Income reports (P&L) only show your revenue/income and tax-deductible expenses. Only the mortgage interest component of your monthly loan payment is a tax-deductible expense. Principal paydown for a loan (and escrow payments, if applicable) are not considered deductible expenses by the IRS and are not displayed on the Net Income/ Profit and loss statements.
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The Performance (NOI) reports show the income generated by the ongoing operation of your properties. Compared to the Net Income (P&L) reports above, NOI removes items related to the financing of the property (e.g., interest paid; the acquisition or disposition of a property, like depreciation or the gain on a sale). It is useful for comparing the performance of assets financed in different ways or owned for different lengths of time.
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The Cash Flow report is designed to show investors a picture of their day-to-day operating ins and outs. The Operating Cash Flow report does NOT reflect asset purchases via either manual journal or fixed asset purchase. This prevents the occasional property purchase or CapEx transaction from heavily distorting the view of your more standard, day-to-day, ongoing operational money in and money out.

Customers do not need to send TurboTenant a 1099. In general, you do not need to issue 1099s to corporations.

Unfortunately, the TurboTenant Accounting system does not offer budgeting capabilities or pro forma financial statements at this time. The system focuses on what has happened so that you can best prepare for tax time and evaluate performance, not on expected performance or what should happen.

Generally speaking, you can edit transactions 'within' their transaction type but not between them. For example, you can edit an expense and change the property or expense account, but you can't change it into a fixed asset purchase or credit card payment.
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To do that, we delete or undo the transaction and re-book it as appropriate. If the transaction originated in the import feed from a linked bank account, it would revert to unbooked status (the underlying imported record from the bank won't be removed).
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The easiest way to do this is to find the transaction in your import feed and click the 'View' button on the transaction. That will allow you to view the booked transaction record and the option to 'Undo' it. Click the Undo button and confirm. Then click the Book button on the transaction to start over, selecting the new transaction type from the options.

Typically, interest earned is booked using the 'Revenue' transaction template and setting the transaction scope to the portfolio level. We have a default 'Interest' revenue account, which is used for these transactions. You'll see the interest as a separate line item on your net income statements once it has been booked.
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The Revenue account will pre-fill to Interest instead of Rent for bank account deposits of less than a few dollars, but you'll need to select it manually for larger amounts.

Interest revenue won't be included on the Schedule E or Form 8825, but rather the best report to look at would be the Net Income by Property.

There is a way to force sync TurboTenant Accounting! To manually force a refresh, navigate to the full accounting webpage:

To navigate to the REI Hub Accounting website, you can:

1. Navigate to the Import Feed from the Transactions tab and select the Edit Rules button with the icon:

2. Navigate to the Tracking tab and select any of the links that show the icon:

3. Navigate to the Insights tab and select Reports, from here select any of the links that show the icon:

Once on the accounting website, select TurboTenant under the accounts dropdown in the left-side menu, and click "Resync Portfolio". This will refresh the account as of today's date and pull in any transactions or properties that have not yet been imported into TurboTenant Accounting.

If you've done this and are still not seeing the property, navigate to the Properties page and click "Filter" and "Show inactive properties" to see if the property might be there. To reactivate an inactive property, click "Dashboard" under the property address, "Edit" in the upper right-hand corner of that property dashboard screen, and uncheck the "this property is inactive" checkbox before clicking save. This will put the property back on your Properties page.

The TurboTenant Accounting system does not offer payroll or benefits-related features or have direct integrations with payroll providers. That being said, you can easily update your chart of accounts to create a new expense account for payroll and benefits and book the payroll withdrawals there. You could then enter summary journal entries produced by your payroll provider.
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For example, a few users utilize Gusto or other similarly well-regarded small business payroll providers. The payroll provider produces a journal that you can record into TurboTenant Accounting at your desired frequency (every pay period, monthly, quarterly, annually). This allows you to keep and report consolidated financials from TurboTenant Accounting.

Charges are not imported into REI Hub, only payments. The transaction recorded in accounting will be the payment amount net of the credit. The full charge amount and credit granted do not need to be reported to the IRS since no money changed hands, but the transaction could be edited to the full rent amount and an offsetting expense line if desired.

Yes, but a little disclaimer: TurboTenant Accounting is an accounting software that does not provide a complete suite of professional property management tools. For example, at this time, TurboTenant Accounting does not do the following: