Sunday, December 21, 2008

Landlord Organizing For 2009

Today I had a nice chance to get organized for the start of a new year. Last year I became a landlord and learned many things. One of the most important thigs was to stay organized. To set myself up for a great 2009 I did the following today. I located the Minnesota Certificate Of Rent Paid information on the MN Internal Revenue website and read the instructions. I then filled out the proper number of MN Certificate Of Rent Paid forms for my tenants and put them in the envelopes with postage all ready to mail after I receive my January rent payment. I then started a new year in Quickbooks due to some issues I had in the previous year. Now I can start the year fresh with everything balancing. This will make pulling financial infomation from Quickbooks much easier next year. Finally I created an invoice for January's rent and emailed it to all my tenants after creating a distribution list so they all get the invoice at the same time. This eliminates the possibliy that one tenant may keep information from one or more tenants. On the invoice in the Memo section I note that Rent is due 1/1 and a late fee is assesed on 1/5/2009. Hopefully this ensures that rent is paid on time more consistantly in 2009.