Author: Alita Hall

Parents with working dependents, this post is for you and your working dependent. Below is the link to an article I found giving some insight into the requirements to file with your working dependents and if they should file on their own as well. I am going to highlight the key points AND provide the link to the article as well. Happy reading! What can you claim on your return? For 2019, dependents who are not 65 or older or blind, who have earned income more than $12,200, must file their own return. Income levels required to file a return for those 65 and over or blind are higher. You do not include their earned income on your taxes. If they earned less than $12,200 in 2019, they do not have to file a return, but may wish to do so to recover any withheld income taxes. You can still claim them as a dependent on your return. Dependents who have unearned income, such as interest, dividends or capital gains, will generally have to file their own tax return if that income is more than $1,100 for 2019 (income levels are higher for dependents 65 or older or blind). A

The final installment in the efficiency series is on Tenant Exit Interviews. How will this make me efficient? When a tenant moves out (this is when you want to conduct an interview, not when they are evicted) he or she can give you valuable insights that can level up your rental business. You can ask questions like the following: What did you like about the application process? Was it easy to get through? Were you fully aware of what we expected from you and what you could expect from us? Would you rent from us again? What was the best thing about the entire process? What was the worst thing? What could we have done better? What do we need to keep doing? If you were renting from us again, what amenities would you like to have that weren’t present now? The key to growing your business is making your rentals stand out to your ideal prospects. What better way to do that than to interview those tenants that are moving on their own accord? Especially if they are caught up on rent, didn’t damage the place, and actually give you a notice BEFORE they move. It’s tenants like this

Now if you have been following my blog, you know that we have already covered employee onboarding and how that helps keep your business running efficiently. Onboarding a tenant also helps and that is what we are going to focusing on in part 5 of our Efficiency series. Onboarding starts at the very beginning when he or she is still a prospect. The purpose of taking you tenant through an onboarding process is so that he or she knows what their responsibilities are and what he or she can expect from you, the landlord. In the beginning this is the application and screening process. Establishing your screening process early on and having a scoring worksheet handy for tenant viewing will let every prospect know what is required from them to rent from you. This keeps you compliant with the Fair Housing laws. The beauty of making this worksheet available to view for your tenant is it will weed some of the prospects out before they even get to the application process. The next step in onboarding is your application process. How clear is this to your prospects? Do they know what kind of documentation you require when they are filling

Welcome to Part 4 of the Efficiency series. In this post we are going to talk about document preparation, retention, and filing for accounting and bookkeeping purposes. Paperwork, YIKES! It is a necessary pain for all business owners. Applications, consent to background and credit checks, lease agreements, income verification, and so much more.  Of all the document types there are, this post will focus on those needed for rental property owners in regards to their accounting. Let’s get into it. As a bookkeeper for rental property owners, I have developed a set of documents I require to accurately record transactional data for my clients. Depending upon your bookkeeper of the choice, the amount of work they do versus the amount of work you do, and the timeframe the work is completed in, this document set may be different. Bank Statements Credit Card Statements New Tenant Info – Name, Unit Number, Rent Amount, Amount of Security Deposit, and payment method Ex Tenant Info Itemized Deposit Return Letter Copy of Security Deposit Check Deposits Slips – Must have unit number, amount, and payment method of each tenant Copies of Checks written Any other document created from the resort of a transaction concerning

Landlords? This post is for you. As an employee of my local Landlord Association, one of the biggest sources of stress I hear about is scheduling showings. Scheduling individual showings of units, just to have the prospect not show up is a stressful waste of time. Unfortunately it is a necessary step in getting the unit rented, no matter WHEN you perform it. I have a solution to automate this and make it smoother and less stressful. Enter Acuity Scheduling. A Squarespace company, boasts “No More Scheduling Hassles” and I agree. I use Acuity in my business and it makes scheduling appointments easy for me and my clients. I know it will make showing a vacancy a breeze for you landlords. Easy to use, you can set Acuity up to have multiple people choose a showing of your own choosing. For each vacancy you have, you will want a separate appointment type for. It will send them reminders for you so they are always aware and you can add screening questions that they have to answer before they can confirm the appointment. Acuity can be configured to send multiple reminders on the day of the showing so the prospect can

Being a bookkeeper is not a glamorous job. There are no fancy products to really showcase the value the service brings to all business industries. Part of my job as a bookkeeper is to educate my clients on the key reasons why professional bookkeeping is so crucial to the overall success of their business. Below are 6 of these reasons. 1. Accurate and organized financial data is NECESSARY. As a business owner, it is your job to keep financial accurate and organized financial records. Those records can tell you how well the business is doing, where the money is coming from, and where it is going. Aside from the obvious, it can help you should there be an audit. Being able to clearly explain any transaction at any given time can potentially save you tens of thousands of dollars. 2. Proper categorization of the Income and Expenses. For tax purposes this is particularly important because getting it wrong can mean an audit, over or understated income and expenses, missed deductions, and overpayment or underpayment of tax liabilities. 3. Timely reporting of sales and payroll tax. As a business owner, there are several tax reporting agencies that require timely filing and