WIIRE 040: 5 Must-Do's for Your Rental Business

Hi, friends welcome back to another podcast episode. This week we're going to talk about the five things that you should do right away when setting up your REI business. This episode is near and dear to us as we're both guilty of missing a few steps along the way when we were getting started! Even if you've already established an REI business, putting these five things into practice will make a massive difference in your business in the long run.

#1 Bookkeeping

Whether you're choosing to outsource your bookkeeping or do it yourself, make sure you set yourself up for success by starting your bookkeeping processes early. We highly recommend using QuickBooks, but there are so many options on the market if it’s not in your budget. When it comes to setting up your QuickBooks or bookkeeping software, we also recommend that you hire a professional to set it up, that way you could choose to self-manage it and do the updating, categorizations, etc. as you go, to give you a hands-on look your finances on a regular basis. Along with hiring a bookkeeper, we also recommend finding a CPA who is well-versed in real estate tax processes.
 

#2 Open A Business Bank Account & Credit Card

We both prefer Capital One because you can generally get approved even without a business credit history and their app is very user-friendly, allowing you to easily see all of your finances in one place. Ideally, we recommend having one account per business entity.

#3 Create Business Profiles

One of the first things you absolutely need is an email address. We also recommend getting a Google Voice number to keep your personal number, personal. You also might consider setting up a PO Box so you don't have to give out your personal address if you don't have an office space, and bonus points if you set up your business social media accounts!
 

#4 Get Setup On A Property Management Software

This is another one of those things we recommend starting early because it will make your life so much easier in the long run. Using a property management tool will allow you to house all of your tenant communication, collect rent, get leases signed, and so much more, and keep everything organized and in one place. Tenantcloud has an excellent free version we recommend checking out. One of the biggest perks of property management tools is that late fees are automatically applied to rent, so you don't even have to think about applying them when rent is past due.

#5 Create Your SOPs

Start out by creating a checklist of everything you're doing; what happens and when. Document all of your processes: everything you do in your business day to day, month to month, week to week, year to year.  These checklists become your SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) and what allows you to do things like train future employees, hire a property manager, or just keep yourself accountable. It should contain the ins and outs of how you run your business and can be as simple as a Google doc. Having SOPs in place helps to decrease decision-making and make sure that things don't slip through the cracks.

As we say: learn from our mistakes. don't do what we did but heed our advice and put these into practice now;  you'll thank us later.

That's all we have for you this week. We appreciate each of you tuning in every week and if you haven't we would really appreciate it if you would leave us a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Reading each review brings us so much joy and really helps us get to know our audience a little bit better.

 We will catch you in the next episode!

Resources:

• Use TenantCloud for your REI biz
• Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts
• Leave us a review on Spotify
• Join our private WIIRE Facebook Community
• Connect with us on Instagram