Which property is actually making you money?
If all your rentals run through one set of books, you have a portfolio total and not much else. Per-property books tell you which unit carries the others — and which one you should have sold last year.
A portfolio-level profit number hides the thing you need to know
Rental income lands in one account. Repairs, taxes, insurance, and mortgage payments go out of the same one. At the end of the year you know the portfolio made money. You don't know that unit 3 lost $4,000 while the duplex quietly covered for it.
- Per-property profit & loss Each property tracked as its own class or location in QuickBooks Online, so you get a real P&L per door alongside the portfolio total.
- Repairs versus improvements, coded correctly A repair is deducted this year. An improvement is capitalized and depreciated over years. Getting that line wrong is one of the most common and most expensive rental bookkeeping errors — and it's your tax preparer who inherits the problem.
- Security deposits as liabilities A deposit isn't income. It's money you're holding that belongs to the tenant. Booked as revenue, it inflates your profit and your tax bill, and it misstates what you actually owe.
- Mortgage payments split properly One payment, three parts: principal reduces a liability, interest is an expense, escrow is a prepaid. Coding the whole payment as "mortgage expense" is wrong in three directions at once.
- Multi-entity structures Separate LLCs per property, or a holding structure with subsidiaries — each entity keeps its own clean set of books, because commingling them is exactly what undermines the liability protection you set them up for.
- Owner draws and contributions Money you put in and take out is equity movement, not revenue or expense. Tracked properly so your basis stays accurate and year-end doesn't turn into archaeology.
A licensed agent's view, not just a bookkeeper's
I hold a Rhode Island real estate license. That doesn't make me your agent on this engagement — but it does mean I've read the settlement statements, I know what a HUD-1 breakdown is doing, and I understand what actually happens at a closing before it reaches your books.
When a purchase closes, the settlement statement has to be split into land, building, closing costs that get capitalized, and prepaid items that don't. Getting that entry right at the start determines your depreciation for the next twenty-seven and a half years.
Faro provides bookkeeping services only. Nothing here is brokerage, legal, or tax advice, and no agency relationship is created by this engagement.
Built for portfolios
- Unlimited properties and entities
- Class or location tracking per door
- Purchase and sale settlement entries
- Depreciation schedules coordinated with your CPA
- Multi-currency, for property held abroad
- Bilingual service in English or Español
Portfolio & Cross-Border plan, starting at $1,000/month. See pricing
U.S. and Dominican Republic
If you own property or run a business in the Dominican Republic while living in the U.S., your bookkeeping has to handle two currencies, two sets of documentation, and records that arrive in Spanish. I read both, so nothing has to be translated before it can be recorded.
One thing to be clear-eyed about
U.S. citizens and residents are taxed on worldwide income. Self-employment tax applies regardless of where you live and is not covered by the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, and there is currently no income tax treaty or totalization agreement between the United States and the Dominican Republic. Foreign accounts may also trigger FBAR and FATCA reporting.
Clean bilingual books make all of that far easier to file — but the filing itself belongs to a cross-border CPA or Enrolled Agent, and I'll tell you that before you engage me, not after. This is information, not tax advice.
Let's look at your portfolio.
A free 30-minute call. Bring the number of doors, the entity structure, and how you're tracking things now — that's enough to give you a real answer.