Property Accounting With Sage

There are few books on how to perform accounting for property managers and property investors. This book explains the basic principles needed to correctly record accounting information relating to property. It uses worked examples for setting up and recording information in the popular Sage 50 accounting package. This book was written by people who are not accountants, tax advisors or Independent Financial Advisors. After 20 years in the property management business the author knows how to present accounts to his own advisors efficiently.

The book does not offer any accountancy or tax advice it makes it very clear that the author is not qualified in any of these fields. What the book does bring to the table are systems to simplify working with accountants and other advisors. This should help to keep your costs down when asking for advice and direction from your professional advisors.

The book outlines the very basic principles of accounting and how to use them with the Sage 50 Accounting Package. Once these principles are understood the book then takes the reader on a journey towards a viable and robust property management accounting system.

The first part of the journey shows how to set up a property accounting system from scratch. This includes setting up accounts for the capital invested in the business and how to input any transactions that occurred before setting up with a Sage Accounting package.

The second part of the journey starts after your advisor has signed off your starting position. This is where your property management business continues to record new transactions. One example is that it tackles items such as why recording capital repayment vs interest only mortgages are treated differently and why.

The journey continues with a brief look at what financial reports are needed and why. This part of the journey requires input from your accountant and tax adviser. The author makes clear two things here. Firstly, your tax and financial affairs will be different to anyone else's affairs which is why you need advisors who know you well. Secondly, producing reports once you have captured the data is now an extremely simple task.

Finally, the book discusses how to take backups and restores of the data captured. This crucial safety net is often glossed over or ignored completely. Here, the whole subject is covered so the reader's property management business should be protected in the event of any form of data loss due to computer system failure, burgalry or other cause.