QuickBooks for Airbnb Rentals: Why Make Accounting Software a Part of Your Tech Stack

Owning and managing Airbnb properties can be a rewarding experience, but it also brings challenges, and one of the most important aspects is keeping your finances in order. Whether running a single Airbnb property or building a vacation rental management business, understanding your numbers is critical to your profitability and long-term success.

You must establish solid bookkeeping and accounting practices to manage your properties’ finances and make informed business decisions. Airbnb accounting can be quite complicated, but the good news is that software tools are out there to help make your job easier and more organized.

QuickBooks stands out as a popular choice among accounting software solutions for Airbnb because it offers a comprehensive set of robust accounting and financial management features. But is QuickBooks for Airbnb the right accounting software for your specific needs? Let’s find out.

Using QuickBooks for Airbnb Accounting Tasks

Maintaining your finances is key to running a profitable and organized Airbnb business. With all the transactions, expenses, and taxes to juggle, financial management of short-term rentals is more challenging than other real estate strategies, especially for hosts with more than one property. However, the right accounting software can make managing finances easier.

QuickBooks is a popular accounting software platform designed for small and mid-size businesses. It is used across different industries, including real estate and vacation rentals. QuickBooks accounting platform offers an extensive suite of tools and features. It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy to get started, so it’s a popular choice among STR property owners and managers.

You can use QuickBooks for Airbnb to help manage your properties’ finances, automate your bookkeeping, and simplify your accounting. The software can handle general business accounting needs, from tracking guest payments and cleaning expenses to tax preparation and generating financial reports.

Most Airbnb hosts benefit from using dedicated accounting software like QuickBooks. Still, operating short-term rental properties comes with many responsibilities and can be time-consuming. Successful Airbnb hosts and property managers rely on vacation rental software like Hospitable that allows them to streamline operations and improve efficiency. With Hospitable, you can automate almost all repetitive tasks and put your entire STR business on autopilot.

QuickBooks for Airbnb: Key Features

Many owners of vacation rental properties rely on QuickBooks as trusted software for their financial management needs. The QuickBooks accounting platform allows you to

• Categorize and track expenses associated with your rental property portfolio, such as cleaning and maintenance costs, Airbnb supplies, and utilities, making it easier to prepare for the coming tax season;
• Monitor finances related to profits, such as revenue and commissions;
• Create and send custom invoices and accept online payments;
• Organize your rental income and expenses in a tax-friendly way, simplifying the tax filing process and making it easier to claim Airbnb tax deductions;
• Generate different types of financial reports to get valuable insights into the financial health of your Airbnb business and identify areas for growth and improvement.

QuickBooks offers several pricing plans, each with a different set of features tailored to meet the needs of vacation rental businesses of all sizes. You can start using QuickBooks choosing a subscription plan that suits your business needs.

• The Simple Start plan, which is the cheapest and costs $35/month, has basic features like income and expense tracking, bookkeeping automation, invoicing, tax deductions, and basic reporting. This may be enough to cover the needs of most small-scale real estate investors.
• The Essentials plan, which is priced at $65/month, also includes enhanced reports, multiple currencies, and time tracking.
• The Plus plan ($$99/month) gives you access to additional features like project and inventory tracking.
• The Advanced plan ($235/month) gives you access to all features, including powerful financial reports, and offers more advanced automation capabilities and 24/7 support & training.

Why Use Quickbooks for Vacation Rental Properties

If you manage multiple vacation rental properties, QuickBooks offers a convenient way to manage your finances, automating and simplifying your accounting tasks and ensuring accurate financial records.

While this accounting software is not specifically designed for people managing short-term rental properties, it is packed with useful features and has a lot of add-ons and integrations that dramatically expand its functionality.

QuickBooks is easy to use and can save you valuable time to focus on providing a seamless guest experience and growing your vacation rental business. Hospitable hosts on the Mogul plan can now integrate their accounts with QuickBooks to automate and streamline accounting processes.

Watch this explainer video to learn how Hospitable’s accounting integrations work.

Making a connection is easy and can be done in a few steps. You need to log in to Hospitable and go to Operations > Owner Statements > Accounting. Then, you need to locate QuickBooks, click the Connect button, and follow the prompts. After signing in, you have to map your accounts, properties, and owners chart. Finally, publish an owner statement to push the financial data to QuickBooks.

Once you connect QuickBooks with Hospitable, our system will automatically sync financials from your published owner statements to ensure reservation financials are categorized correctly in your accounting software.

QuickBooks will populate the balance sheet and profit and loss reports with our data, so you won’t have to spend time on manual data entry. This way, you can be sure that your financial details are accurately reflected in your accounting software and are up-to-date.

Connecting QuickBooks to Hospitable allows you to streamline your accounting process and keep your STR business tax-ready with all reservation financials properly categorized. You’ll reduce errors, save your valuable time, and make it easier to prepare for tax season.

If you need more guidance on connecting your accounting software to Hospitable, check out our help article for step-by-step instructions.