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How should I use categories for Rental Income and Expense situation?
I would like to enter information for my rental property including rent I receive, and maintenance costs, taxes, insurance, etc, that I pay. I am stymied as to whether "Rental Property" should be called an expense or an income category. I wanted to make one category of "Rental Property" with sub-categories for the various streams of money. But it seems that somehow they're getting all confused as to whether they're credits or debits. Any help?
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?I have rental property too, and I use categories that correspond to those on my 1040 Schedule E. That makes it really easy to do my taxes.
To record income, I used the Edit Categories menu to create an income category called "Sched E Rents Received." When rent comes in, that's the one I use.
To record expenses, I used the Edit Categories menu to set up expense categories called "Sched E Advertising," "Sched E Insurance," "Sched E Plumbing and Electrical," "Sched E Repairs," and so forth.
Hope this is helpful. It works fine for me, and my CPA likes it too. He gets a nice clean report every tax season for rental property. I just generate a Moneydance report that includes only those categories that begin with "Sched E."
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Thanks for the very helpful reply, George. That's genius to use Sched E right in the cat name.
So, how do you get the report to print out all your Sched E items on one page? For me, the "Generate Report" menu lists all the expense categories first, followed by all the income ones. I can't select an item from the expense section and then one from the income section without also selecting the 100 intervening categories. This is what led me to try to make ONE category, with some expense and some income subcategories (which totally didn't work). Is there perhaps some basic thing I'm not understanding about how to choose items for a report?
Thanks again! -
Inappropriate?I can't promise they'll print on one page, because page length depends on the number of categories you use and the font size you select in the prefs. However, the generation part is easy. Stepwise, here's how I do mine: 1. Click on the report/graph icon on right top of the MD main/home page. You'll see the list of possible graph and report types. 2. Click on Detailed Income and Expenses. 3. Select your date range from the top pulldown. 4. Select Selected Categories from the second pulldown. 5. Control-click on all the Sched E categories (if you're on a Mac, use Apple-click instead of CTRL-click) so that they're highlighted. If you're getting all the intervening categories, you're not doing this step correctly, and you're probably using shift-click rather than Apple-click or CTRL-click. 6. If you want to see more details of each transaction, check the Show Memos box. 7. Generate!
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Inappropriate?Thanks again, George, for going over all the steps so carefully for me. (That apple-click is really going to come in handy!) I really appreciate your help. You have solved my problem!
I’m thankful
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Inappropriate?I handle things a little bit differently (though similarly) and thought I'd add my two cents worth.
I have multiple rental properties and want to be able to report on them separately. I use categories for each property and subcategories for the various types of income and expense (corresponding to Schedule E categories, although I break things down even further so I can track various expenses more specifically.)
For example, I have INCOME categories like these:
Rental Income: Property A: Rent
Rental Income: Property A: Laundry
Rental Income: Property A: Other
Rental Income: Property B: Rent
... etc.
I have EXPENSE categories like these:
Rental Expense: Property A: Management
Rental Expense: Property A: Utilities: Electricity
Rental Expense: Property A: Utilities: Gas
Rental Expense: Property A: Repairs: Painting
Rental Expense: Property A: Repairs: Carpentry
... and so on for Property B, C, etc.
This way, I can report on income and expenses across ALL properties or across a specific property. I can track specific expenses (like looking at a property's electricity costs over time, or just utility costs as a whole.) When I do my taxes, I'm basically interested only in the Schedule E categories (Utilities, Repairs, Maintenance, etc.) but for my own analysis I can break things down further. I can also just look at things at a very high level, like total rental income vs. total rental expenses.
Just to clarify, where I have the colons (:) above, that represents a subcategory "below" the parent category.
Hope I was of some help!
I’m happy
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Thanks for sharing your system, Dave. When I accumulate more properties, I'll definitely follow suit.
