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beehappybeachhouse
April 13, 2021
Question

Vacation Rental Functionality

  • April 13, 2021
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

With all the people using VRBO and AirBnB these days I'm hugely disappointed with Quickbooks inability to allow quick set up for a short term vacation rental business. I'm reading about a million work-arounds that people are using and it's incredibly time consuming and confusing.  I have an asset, it depreciates, I collect rental income, I have expenses to run the house.  It's not that complicated.  Why hasn't Quickbooks just created a business template for this?  They have one for renting literally every other type of asset.

      2 replies

      C
      continea
      Level 5
      April 14, 2021

      Welcome to the QuickBooks Community, beehappybeachhouse. We would love to help you find a solution to this issue! Could you share which product you're using? This way we can better assist you. I will be looking out to your response. Until then, take care and be safe.

      B
      beehappybeachhouseAuthor
      April 15, 2021

      I started with Simple.  I had QO years ago when I owned a clothing company so I'm not totally unfamiliar with the product.  There shouldn't have to be "workarounds" though.  This is a common business many have started in the past few years, there should be a simple set up solution available.

      john-pero
      john-pero
      Level 12
      April 15, 2021

      You may need to move up to Essentials for additional features but here is what I believe you want to do:

       

      Set up a Customer for the rental. Each time you rent you use this same customer (unless you wish to keep track of a list of all your customers over time in which case you can add each one as a customer or as a Customer:Job of the rental unit)

       

      Charge Rent as a Service item either on Sales Receipts or on an Invoice. By memorizing invoices you can have the same daily invoice be created each morning of an intended stay - for this to work best would be to use individual customers or Jobs. At end of stay you will delete the memorized invoice.

       

      Add income and expense accounts to your chart of accounts to match the tax return you intend to file.

       

      You may have to add multiple "sales" taxes since most AirBnB are considered same as a hotel and most cities have hotel occupancy taxes in addition to any state and/or local sales tax

      E
      epeterson11
      February 6, 2023

      Aloha Bee Happy, You asked a great question and I don’t see many responses. I own a few vacation rental houses in Maui and it’s not rocket science, but it would be nice if there was a better solution to your question. Have you discovered the best software to use?

       

      Mahalo!

        D
        ddcoop
        March 9, 2023

        I signed up for QB to help w/ my short term rental, soon to be 2+. After trying/reading all afternoon to try & figure out how to set up a property & reading a hundred different work arounds, I promptly discontinued the membership. $1000+/year (currently $85/month, puke!) for a program that does NOT do what I want or need it to do?! No thank you. Short term rentals aren't going anywhere. The first program to do it right will get my business. Until then, I'll continue my current path (much to my tax person's chargin). 

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