Rent Manager vs QuickBooks

I have looked at the demos for Rent Manager and at Quick Books. It looks to me like both systems can work. One big difference I think I am seeing is that Quick Books takes a bit of work to set up for your park where as Rent Manager seems to be pre-set up for managing MHPs.

Can someone give me some feed back on this, especially if you have used both. I would like to choose one and move forward with it quickly.

Thanks,

Keith

We use both.

The problem with Quick books is that it lacks many of the property management tools needed to manage.

In contrast the problem with Rent Manager is that it does not offer the accounting flexibility and general familiarity that our professionals have of it.

FOr example our Accountant and book keepers all know and use quickbooks but not Rent manager. This makes it alot easier for our financial dept to move things along.

Bottom line WE LIKE BOTH and USE BOTH.

Hope this feedback helps.

Ralph (or anyone else),

Are there things that you’d like to see in QB? I am updating my templates & making one specifically for MHP. I have not had issues running a small park on it (22 lots) and have several clients doing the same…but perhaps you are looking for the program to do things that we do not. Thanks for any feedback.

I bought John’s KISS system many years ago when we started investing. It was helpful because he really looks at things from an investor point of view and explains his methods thoroughly.

I personally use QuickBooks to run a 75-space park which includes rent-to-own homes as well as for other businesses. It is really important that each park be set up properly or you are over- or under-valuing it in the long run. I just heard someone talking about rent-to-own accounting that was not properly done in a park he is buying while at MHM. Although QuickBooks markets itself to the non-accountant, it is really not that simple. I have seen park records that are in absolutely horrible shape and take an incredible amount of time to fix, if they can be fixed at all, since the managers added entries but did not know where they came from. If you do NOT know accounting, I suggest to you that it is not a do-it-yourself endeavor when you get to the MHP level.

Even though I own John’s add-on, which gives you the proper accounts to get started, I still attend his talks when he is in the area. You will either love or hate what he says politically, but he presents a dry subject in a humorous way.

After listening to Blake’s presentation I am going to do some investigation of Rent Manager. We are currently looking for a several hundred space park and I am for any tool that will make management easier!

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