Whether you’re managing 2 units or 200, choosing between QuickBooks’ robust features and Landlord Studio’s real estate focus can feel like gambling with your business’s financial backbone.

This detailed comparison breaks down exactly how these platforms handle the tasks that matter most to property owners.

We’ll also review Stessa, another popular rental property accounting software solution that landlords can use to automatically track income and expenses, generate comprehensive financial reports, collect rent payments online, and prepare year-end tax returns.

Landlord Studio overview

Landlord Studio was created to help landlords manage rental property more efficiently. The mobile and desktop apps offer features like simplified accounting and tax reporting, tenant screening, online rent collection, and document storage for multiple properties.

If a landlord has vacant property, they can create a listing webpage on the Landlord Studio website, which includes images and a tenant screening portal. Then, they need to manually place the listing link on popular rental listing websites, social media, and emails. Rather than automating rental listings, Landlord Studio centralizes tenant inquiries on its site to make the application process more manageable.

Pricing

After a 14-day free trial, landlords can choose from two Landlord Studio pricing plans with the option of month to month or a discount with annual billing:

• GO plan: Free for the first 3 units
• PRO plan: Priced at $15/month (or $12/month when billed annually) for 3 units, with prices increasing by $1.20/month/unit for each additional unit managed on the platform.
  
• PRO Plus plan: Priced at $35/month (or $28/month when billed annually) for 3 units, with prices increasing by $1.20/month/unit for each additional unit managed on the platform.

Software features

GO

• Track up to 3 properties
• Online rent collection ($2.50 for each transaction, paid by the tenant)
• Automated late fees
• Desktop, iOS, and  Android apps
• Manual income and expense tracking
• Mileage tracking
• Basic reports
• Tenant screening
• Tenant portal with maintenance tracking
• Smart receipt scanner

PRO

Includes all of the features of the GO plan, plus:

• Advanced reporting
• Multiuser access (up to 3 users)
• Bank feed integration (up to 5 accounts)
• Smart receipt scanner
• Storage for up to 250 documents
• Custom email templates
• Integration with Xero
• Automated rent reminders

PRO PLUS

Includes all of the features of the PRO plan, plus:

• Multiuser access (up to 10 users)
• Unlimited bank feed integration
• Unlimited document storage
• Additional screening questions
• Account manager level support

QuickBooks overview

QuickBooks can be beneficial for managing rental property finances. It allows you to create and send invoices, receive payments, track income and expenses, and run reports. 

The software is designed as a general-purpose accounting tool and not specifically for rental property. As a result, QuickBooks doesn’t offer key features most landlords need, such as creating and posting vacant property listings, screening tenants, and collecting rent online.

Pricing

QuickBooks Online offers 4 pricing plans, all of which come with a free trial for 30 days and a promotional discount. In addition, all plans include free mobile apps, support, and app integration:

• Simple Start: $35/month
• Essentials: $64/month
• Plus: $99/month
• Advanced: $235/month

QuickBooks also offers additional options for an extra fee, such as Online Payroll and Live Full-service Monthly Bookkeeping. In addition, the company offers a one-time Live Bookkeeping Guided Setup to provide customers with instructions for setting up a chart of accounts, customized invoices, reminders, and bank account and credit card connections.

Software features

Simple Start

• Income and expenses
• Invoice and payments
• Tax deductions
• General reports
• Receipt capture
• Mileage tracking
• Cash flow
• Sales and sales tax
• Estimates
• Contractors

Essentials

Everything in Simple Start, plus:

• 3 users
• Bill management
• Time entry

Plus

Everything in Simple Start and Essentials, plus:

• 5 users
• Bill management
• Time entry
• Inventory
• Project profitability

Advanced

Everything in the above 3 plans, plus:

• More than 5 users
• Bill management
• Time entry
• Inventory
• Project profitability
• Business analytics with Excel
• Employee expenses
• Batch invoices and expenses
• Customized access
• Exclusive premium apps
• Dedicated account team
• On-demand training
• Workflow automation
• Data restoration

Landlord Studio vs. QuickBooks

Here’s a summary of some essential features landlords typically need, along with an overview of how Landlord Studio and QuickBooks solve for them.

Listings

Landlord Studio and QuickBooks don’t offer automatic listing syndication services. Instead, landlords create a property listing page, then manually place the link on the rental listing websites of their choice.

Tenant screening

Landlord Studio works with TransUnion to obtain applicant information from credit bureaus and generate background checks, credit reports, criminal screenings, and eviction screenings. The $40 report fee can be paid by the landlord or passed on to the applicant.

QuickBooks does not offer tenant screening.

Leasing

Neither Landlord Studio nor QuickBooks offers an option for creating and signing leases online. However, both companies provide options for uploading, organizing, and storing documents online.

Online rent collection

Property owners can collect the monthly rent plus one-time fees, such as a security deposit, prorated rent, or late fees, with Landlord Studio. In addition, tenants can set up recurring rent payments, and funds are transferred to the landlord’s linked bank account within a few business days. Landlord Studio charges tenants a fee of $2.50 for each online rent transaction.

QuickBooks does not offer online rent collection.

Financial reporting

Property owners can automatically track income and expenses with the paid PRO version of Landlord Studio by linking and syncing a bank account. Landlord Studio software can generate 15 financial reports, including a profit and loss statement, rent ledger, and owner net worth. The program can also connect with Xero for enhanced financial reporting.

QuickBooks arguably excels in financial reporting since the software is specifically designed as an accounting tool. However, landlords will need to understand accounting concepts such as debits and credits, assets and liabilities, double-entry accounting, and creating a chart of accounts for rental property.

Tax management

Landlord Studio and QuickBooks can be used to compile data to complete Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Schedule E. Landlord Studio can be synced with Xero, while QuickBooks can integrate with tax programs like TurboTax and ProConnect. Subscribers can also download and save transaction files from Landlord Studio and QuickBooks to share with a tax professional.

Stessa vs. Landlord Studio vs. QuickBooks

Landlord Studio and QuickBooks are good options, although both require a subscription plan and may offer features that owners of small property portfolios don’t need.

Stessa, a Roofstock company, is a platform that offers a streamlined experience for landlords who own single-family rentals (SFRs), small multifamily properties, short-term vacation rentals, and entire rental property portfolios. More than 200,000 investors already use Stessa to track their properties with more than $60 billion in asset value.

Stessa includes online rent collection, income and expense tracking, and free resources from the Stessa Tax Center to make tax readiness a breeze. 

After signing up and entering some basic property information, real estate investors can:

• Automated income and expense tracking: Organize and categorize transactions automatically from connected bank, lender, credit card, and property management accounts with no extra fee or add-on required. 
• Financial reporting: Generate income statements, net cash flow reports, balance sheets (with the paid Stessa Pro plan), and more, all within the platform.
• Real-time performance metrics: Get 24/7 visibility into your portfolio’s performance with no third-party software required.
• Property management integration: Connect to some property management software platforms for a complete portfolio summary.
• Online rent collection: Automate your rent collection process, including payment reminders and late fees, reducing the likelihood of missed or late payments.
• Advertise vacancies: Publishing a vacancy for rent and syndicate your listing out to a variety of websites for maximum exposure to high quality tenants.
• Rental applications: Manage tenant applications efficiently and effectively by streamlining the process of publishing vacancies and collecting and reviewing applications.
• Landlord banking: Open FDIC-insured bank accounts and enjoy a more efficient way to manage your property-related finances. You can earn more than 10x the national average interest rate on every dollar deposited.*
• Tenant screening: Use a proprietary approach with RentPrep for comprehensive tenant checks, including a full credit report, background check, and more. Landlords can also add screening for income verification or of judgment and liens, increasing the odds of selecting reliable tenants.
• Unlimited properties: Add as many single-family homes, short-term vacation rentals, or multifamily units as you like.
• Tax center: Tax time is a cinch thanks to the Stessa Tax Package feature. It helps aggregate your transactions and sends you personalized tax reports via email with digital copies of all of your receipts packaged into a single ZIP file.
• eSigning (partnered with DocuSign): With the Stessa Pro plan, you can upload up to five documents monthly, mark them for electronic signatures, and send them to tenants, vendors, and partners.
• Smart receipt scanning: Add expense receipts to your transactions ledger quickly and accurately via mobile scans and email forwarding, reducing the risk of losing or misplacing vital receipts.

Go here to create a free Stessa account.

*Stessa is not a bank. Stessa is a financial technology company. Terms and conditions, features and pricing are subject to change. This article, and the Stessa Blog in general, is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and is not investment, tax, financial planning, financial, legal, or real estate advice.