I have started thinking how I could usefully use QuickFile to record rents received, expenses etc considering the plans for MTD (self assessment). I have some issues/questions as to how to handle bank reconciliation - with my company accounts I can reconcile everything as it is relative to the business but with this I will either have to import and delete transactions (and have an inaccurate balance) or I need to tag items as not relevant to the property rentals so that they are not used in future calculations etc.
It would also be good to track mortgage payments made
Another useful addition would be a calendar / maintenance schedule to remind you with a summary when last gas cert / energy / elect cert was done and when next is due.
I am also not clear how QuickFile would handle EEC FHL accommodation (which is treated separately from UK rental activity).
This all gets quite complicated so I look forward to seeing where you go with this.
You could(should) use a separate bank account for your rent income and outgoings. This bank account you can then connect to quickfile and that way it would be in balance.
You may use a loan/mortgage account in quickfile to keep track.
First of all, are the properties owned by a limited company… If you own them then you cant deduct mortgage interest to reduce your profits
You say… With my company accounts i can… That suggests you have a separate company which does something not related to property. If that is the case then are you trying to put your property income through the same accounts (definately not reccommended unless the company owns the property) and if not, why would you need to tag items as not relevent to property rentals
Next, is this residential or commercial property
Its easy to use QF as a landlord but I am not sure I understand what you are trying to achieve
Sorry @ChrisA14 I don’t think I have given you the full picture, just highlighting some of the complexities and difficulties I faced at considering trying to do things properly in a separate QuickFile Account.
Firstly, yes I have separate companies in separate QuickFile accounts - these are ltd companies and dealt with as separate entities - not to be confused here. I signed up an additional Landlord account to see how this could be of benefit in moving towards the targets of online tax. My point is with the LTD companies elements are clear cut as they relate solely to that business.
The properties are UK residential properties and EEA FHL (which falls into its own section on a self assessment and is treated differently).
For the rental properties they are privately owned and therefore get added into self assessment income. As this income and expenditure is transacted from a personal bank account where both income and mortgage payments are taken from. I cannot claim mortgage payments (as you will be aware you can only claim basic rate relief). This leaves questions how I would have to separate out elements from those payments made - it is not just as simple as connecting a bank feed and tagging items as they are not all allowable (as mortgage payment is also split between repayment element and interest element) and I would have to make adjustments and tag non-allowable elements somewhere?
To me it seems I would still have to break down payments in the bank accounts and could not rely on a simple import and tagging.
Happy to hear further thoughts with the hope they can simplify life rather than complicating it.
Without doubt, you want a separate bank account to keep your income and expenditure on property separate. Personally I use Starling & Mettle and have found them both to be very good.
Use a separate QF set up and for £15ish/year you can get the bank transactions pulled directly into QF.
Within QF, if you set up each property as a “customer”, you can set it so you have 2 types of “sales” income. One for the standard rentals and one for the holiday lets. That way, when you create an invoice for a rental, it automatically splits it into the different categories which you will need for your tax return.
Although holiday letting invoices will have to be raised manually in response to bookings, with long term rentals, what I do is set up a recurring invoice to automatically create an invoice each month for the rent. I don’t actually send them to the tenant but it automatically creates the “sale” in QF. Then if the tenant pays as they should, the money goes into the bank, the transaction is pulled into QF and is automatically matched by QF so I don’t even look at it. I only get to see any tenants who have not paid (because the sale is showing as unpaid) - it makes the book keeping much easier.
Keeping it all separately will also make life much easier if you ever get questions from HMRC