Must-Know Real Estate Accounting Software Options for 2023

Real estate bookkeeping comes down to understanding how much income you generate vs. your expenses. Tracking and analyzing your finances helps you make decisions about your real estate investments to increase profitability, identify applicable tax deductions, and ensure IRS compliance by accurately documenting your expenses. Real estate accounting software should enable you to send invoices, accept payments online, calculate taxes, and track income and expenses. 

The best real estate accounting software for 2023 are:

• QuickBooks Online: Best Overall
• Xero: Best for Online Invoicing
• Sage Accounting: Best for Real Estate Investors
• Buildium: Best for Property Management
• Bench: Best for Real Estate Professionals Who Owe Back Taxes
• Zoho Books: Best for Zoho CRM Users
• FreshBooks: Best for Short-Term Rentals
• Quicken: Best Affordable Accounting Software
• NetSuite: Best for Growing Real Estate Businesses

Real Estate Accounting Software Comparison Table

	Cost	Income and Expense Tracking	Invoicing	Best Features for Real Estate Professionals
QuickBooks Online	30-day free trial, and 50% off your first three months. Plans start at $30/month	✔️	✔️	Mileage tracking and project management
Xero	30-day free trial, then plans are 50% off for your first three or six months, depending on the plan. Plans start at $13/month	✔️	✔️	Asset-tracking, reports, and contact management
Sage Accounting	Custom pricing is available upon request	✔️	✔️	Multi-entity consolidation and can be combined with Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate property management software
Buildium	14-day free trial then plans start at $52/month	✔️	❌	Tenant background screening, rental applications, property management website, online rent collection and maintenance requests, and more
Bench	One-month free trial then plans start at $249/month	✔️	❌	❌
Zoho Books	14-day free trial then you can stick with the free plan or paid plans start at $15/month	✔️	✔️	Mileage tracking and project management
FreshBooks	30-day free trial then plans start at $17/month	✔️	✔️	Mileage tracking, project management, client collaboration, receipt capture
Quicken	30-day money-back guarantee then plans start at $2.39/month	✔️	✔️	Schedule E forms, categorize rental income and expenses, track tenants and rent from multiple properties
NetSuite	Custom pricing	✔️	✔️	Cash flow forecasting

Best Real Estate Accounting Software

The best accounting software for real estate professionals is easy to use and affordable, and includes invoicing, income and expense tracking, project management, financial reports, and real estate-specific tools such as tenant management and maintenance tracking. Read on to learn why we chose these nine real estate accounting software options as the best choices for 2023.

QuickBooks Online: Best Overall

Benefits

While not specifically designed for real estate, QuickBooks Online is the best accounting software for real estate professionals overall, as it provides the key bookkeeping features you need, such as income and expense tracking, invoicing, tax deductions, mileage tracking, and project management, and a variety of discounts and plans to meet different budgets. 

Pros

• Assisted bookkeeping feature provides you with expert help categorizing transactions, reviewing reports, and automating QuickBooks so that it works efficiently for your specific needs
• Can automatically sort expenses into tax categories
• Ability to automatically calculate taxes on your invoices

Cons

• 24/7 customer support only available for the highest-level plan

Pricing

QuickBooks Online offers a 30-day free trial and 50% off your first three months. Assisted bookkeeping is an additional $50/month. 

Simple Start: $30/month, includes income and expense tracking, invoicing, tax deductions, reporting, receipt capture, mileage tracking, and estimates.

Essentials: Contains everything in the Simple Start plan, plus bill management and employee time entry, and starts at $55/month.

Plus: Everything in the Essentials plan, and inventory management and project tracking, starts at $85/month.

Advanced: Everything in the Plus plan, and employee expenses, batch invoices, workflow automation, and 24/7 customer support, starts at $200/month.

Xero: Best for Online Invoicing

Benefits

Xero offers full-service, cloud-based accounting software with features real estate professionals need, including bill pay, expense claims, bank connections, contact management, accounting reports, project tracking, document storage, and online invoicing. With Xero, you can create customized invoices directly from its app, send automatic payment reminders, accept payments online, and turn quotes into invoices.

Pros

• Ability to pay and get paid in over 160 currencies
• The contact management feature enables you to view customer transaction history, organize contacts into groups, and send targeted emails
• 24/7 online customer support

Cons

• Unable to contact Xero without signing up for a free trial

Pricing

Free 30-day trial, then Xero offers 50% off its current price for three or six months, depending on your plan. You can add payroll to any of Xero’s plans for an additional $40/month plus $6/month per person. 

Early: Can enter up to five bills and send 20 invoices, reconcile bank transactions, and capture receipts for $13/month.

Growing: Includes everything in the Early plan, plus unlimited bills, quotes, and invoices. The Growing plan starts at $18.50/month.

Established: Everything in the Growing plan, and you can claim expenses, use multiple currencies, and track projects for $70/month.

Sage Accounting: Best for Real Estate Investors

Benefits

Sage offers a wide range of accounting and business management software for companies of all sizes. Its Intacct accounting software is designed for multi-entity businesses, making it one of the best options for real estate investors. Intacct is unified accounting software that helps streamline financial planning and increases productivity (and revenue) by consolidating multiple entities so that you can access your investment data in one place. Sage’s automated general ledger and currency conversions save time and reduce errors, and enable you to track net income by location and cash flow details by entity.

Pros

• Able to combine with Sage 300 Business and Real Estate property management software
• Can handle simple or complex (such as minority or partial) ownership structures 
• Masterclass, forums, and learning resources available to Sage customers

Cons

• Customer service unavailable on weekends

Pricing

Custom pricing is available upon request. 

Buildium: Best for Property Management

Benefits

Buildium is the best commercial real estate accounting software for property managers, as it provides the bookkeeping features you need to manage multiple properties, and has no unit minimum. Buildium’s features include property accounting with built-in billing calculators, online rent collection and tracking, maintenance request management, tenant screening, rental listings, and a free property management website.

Pros

• Tenants can submit maintenance requests online along with images, documents, or videos
• Can create a message board in Builidum’s Resident Center so that tenants can share information with community members
• Buildium will host a free website that allows you to advertise rentals, accept rental applications, and communicate with residents, vendors, and staff

Cons

• Adding bank accounts to your plans costs $99 per account, although the higher-tier plans offer five free bank accounts

Pricing

Buildium offers a 14-day free trial and custom pricing for community associations and customers with over 5,000 units. There is a 10% discount when you pay for your plan annually. 

Essential: Includes accounting, maintenance request management, resident communication tools, and online portals, and starts at $52/month.

Growth: Includes everything in the Essentials plan, plus unlimited eSignatures, analytics, and live phone support, and starts at $166/month. 

Premium: Everything in the Growth plan, plus open application programming interface (API), priority customer support, and a consultant for new client leads, starts at $479/month.

Bench: Best for Real Estate Professionals Who Owe Back Taxes

Benefits

Bench offers a variety of accounting services, including monthly bookkeeping, tax advisory, tax filing, and catch-up and retroactive services that can help real estate professionals who are months or even years behind on their bookkeeping. Bench’s financial experts can help you get your finances in order, create affordable payment plans, and comply with the IRS. 

Pros

• Catch Up Bookkeeping includes documents needed to apply for applicable financial relief programs, such as Paycheck Protection
• Free consultation for customers who are more than two years behind on their bookkeeping
• Once Bench has your financial documents, it can complete a year’s worth of bookkeeping in as little as a few days

Cons

• Premium plan only available with an annual contract

Pricing

One-month free trial, then the Essential plan is 29% off when billed annually. S-Corps, C-Corps, and Partnerships can add personal filing for one shareholder or partner for an additional $59/month when billed annually or $69/month when billed monthly. 

Essential: Includes a team of bookkeeping experts, monthly books, and year-end financial packages, and starts at $249/month.

Premium: Everything in the Essential plan, plus a team of licensed tax experts to file your tax return and unlimited 1-on-1 tax advisory services, starts at $399/month. 

Zoho Books: Best for Zoho CRM Users

Benefits

Zoho Books pairs perfectly with Zoho CRM for a complete accounting and customer management software package for real estate firms. While Zoho CRM provides sales process, property management, and automation tools, Zoho Books supports your accounting needs with features that real estate professionals require, including invoicing, quotes, project management, mileage tracking, and reporting. 

Pros

• The vendor portal enables vendors to pay bills online and notifies you when they view transactions or comment on documents
• Customizable invoices with multiple payment options and automated payment reminders
• The auto-scan option allows you to scan documents and turn them into invoices or purchase orders

Cons

• Add-ons are not available for Zoho Books’ free plan

Pricing

Zoho Books offers a free 14-day trial, then plans range from free to $240/month per organization and are billed annually. Add-ons include users ($2.50/month per user), advanced auto-scans ($8/month for 50 scans), and snail mails ($2/credit).

Free: Plan includes one user, up to 1,000 invoices/year, bank reconciliation, payments,  expenses, mileage tracking, and more.

Standard: Includes three users, everything in the free plan, up to 5,000 invoices, ten custom reports, and starts at $15/month.

Professional: Five users, everything in the Standard plan, timesheets, recurring bills, project profitability, 25 custom reports, and starts at $40/month.

Premium: Ten users, everything in the Professional plan, plus vendor portal, budgeting, cash flow forecasting report, 50 custom reports, up to 200 workflow rules, and starts at $60/month.

Elite: Ten users, everything in the Premium plan, plus unlimited custom reports and advanced inventory control, starts at $120/month. 

Ultimate: Fifteen users, everything in the Elite plan, plus 25 custom modules and advanced analytics, starts at $240/month. 

FreshBooks: Best for Short-Term Rentals 

Benefits

Real estate professionals who rent out their properties via Airbnb, VRBO, or HomeAway will do well with FreshBooks, as it offers everything they need to track business profitability and pay contractors, and provides accountant access to their books.

Pros

• The profitability widget can show you the income and costs of each rental property
• Can invite your accountant plus their team of up to 10 team members to access and update your journal entries and chart of accounts (list of all of your business’s financial accounts)
• Can generate multiple reports, including profit and loss, sales tax summary, payments collected, expense, mileage, and project profitability reports

Cons

• No tax-time-specific accounting reports are available

Pricing

FreshBooks offers a 30-day free trial and often has sales. Additional users are an extra $11/month per person, and advanced payments are $20/month (except for the Select plan, which they are included in). You can also add payroll via Gusto to any plan by talking to a FreshBooks specialist. 

Lite: Includes unlimited invoices for up to five clients, unlimited expenses and estimates, payments, and reports, and starts at $17/month. 

Plus: Unlimited invoices for up to 50 clients and everything in the Lite plan, plus receipt capture and mobile mileage tracking, starts at $30/month.

Premium: Unlimited invoices for unlimited clients, everything in the Plus plan, project profitability, and payment reminders, starts at $55/month.

Select: Everything in the Premium plan, plus lower transaction and transfer fees, a dedicated account manager, customized client emails, and advanced payments. You can contact FreshBooks for customized pricing for the Select plan.

Quicken: Best Affordable Accounting Software

Benefits

Quicken is a desktop product that provides affordable accounting software with essential features, including income and expense tracking, budgeting, projected cash flow, bill pay, and reporting, and includes real estate-specific tools. Quicken’s Home and Business and Premier plans allow you to track your updated home value with Zillow, and its Home and Business plan provides a Schedule E form to track income from rental properties. All plans enable you to categorize rental property income and expenses, while its Home and Business plan is the best commercial real estate accounting software as it allows you to track tenants and rent from multiple properties. 

Pros

• Simplifi app is a personal finance app that offers many of the same services as Quicken
• Can import and export tax data with TurboTax
• The buy/sell tool shows the tax implications of proposed transactions

Cons

• Quicken Home and Business is only compatible with Windows and only available as a desktop version, although you can sync it with Quicken’s mobile and web companion apps

Pricing

Quicken offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. Its plans are billed annually. Quicken’s plans provide mobile money management, income, expense, and investment tracking, tax planning, budgeting, projected cash flow, bill pay, reporting, and rental pay tools. 

Simplifi: App available on the web or via your mobile device, starts at $2.39/month.

Deluxe: Windows and Mac compatible desktop app, starts at $2.99/month.

Premier: Windows and Mac compatible desktop app, includes premium customer support, and starts at $4.19/month.

Home and Business: Desktop app compatible with Windows, includes premium customer support and business and rental property-specific features, and starts at $5.99/month.

NetSuite: Best for Growing Real Estate Businesses

Benefits

NetSuite is the best accounting software for real estate professionals who want to scale their businesses, as it provides accounting and business management software designed to support companies of all sizes. Its accounting software includes features that growing real estate businesses need, such as a general ledger, invoicing, bill pay, account reconciliation, and tax management. NetSuite also offers global business, data, and human capital management systems, marketing automation, and analytics and reporting to help support your expanding needs. 

Pros

• The general ledger features automated transaction matching and real-time bank integration
• NetSuite’s tax management system, SuiteTax, benefits global real estate professionals by providing monthly tax rate updates for 110 countries
• Integrates with thousands of financial institutions

Cons

• Pricing information is unavailable on the website

Pricing

Netsuite offers customized pricing.

Methodology

To evaluate the best real estate accounting software in 2023 we analyzed both comprehensive general accounting software and real estate-specific accounting software with features like tenant management and rent and maintenance tracking. We chose affordable software that is easy to use and offers invoicing, expense and income tracking, reporting, project management, and tax assistance tools and accessible customer support options.

FAQs