Accounting for Airbnb Hosts: What You Need to Know

With shallower learning curves and a great deal of flexibility, Xero is quickly becoming the go-to solution for SMBs in a number of industries. While Instabooks excels in leveraging AI for accounting, it falls short in customization. Despite this, Instabooks remains a top choice for hosts looking for AI-driven accounting software that’s as smart as they are. Its visually appealing design, intuitive navigation, and user-friendly platform make it a favorite among Airbnb hosts, especially those who are not tech-savvy or just starting out. With FreshBooks, managing your Airbnb accounting becomes a breeze, not a chore. Depreciation refers to the gradual loss of value of your rental property over time.

• By depreciating the value of your property each year, you can reduce your overall tax burden.
• Hostfully is an award-winning company with an expert team that gathers insights from Airbnb Superhosts, vacation rental and hospitality industry experts, and tech and travel professionals.
• With Hospitable, you’ll be able to see the performance of your short-term rentals at a glance from our Metrics Dashboard and make intelligent business decisions based on data.
• As a financial app built around ease of use, intuitive interface design and hassle-free user experience, Xero offers many of the most laudable features of QuickBooks and other big-name financial apps.
• Akounto offers to handle all your accounting and tax filing for a flat monthly fee.

Determining Airbnb Income Solely From What’s Received in Your Bank Account

Such fierce editorial standards ensure our content is of the highest possible quality in the industry making it highly competent, credible and trustworthy for you – the reader. Here at Real Estate Bees, we take the content competency, validity and accuracy very seriously. All you need to do is initiate the download on TopNotepad, and your Profit and Loss Statement is ready to be used for your records or tax return filing. The software automatically generates Profit and Loss Statements, without additional user input. If approved, these documents can be converted into invoices with a single click, which you can then email to your clients. Its capabilities also include the creation of estimates and quotations that can be converted into invoices, and an inbuilt email functionality to directly airbnb accounting send these invoices to clients.

Vacation Rental Accounting: Tips for Hosts

If you’re only managing a handful of properties, then a less targeted solution may meet your needs. While perhaps lacking some of the brand recognition of the previous list entry, it’s not due to any inferiority in what Xero has to offer. As a financial app built around ease of use, intuitive interface design and hassle-free user experience, Xero offers many of the most laudable features of QuickBooks and other big-name financial apps. Xero’s advantage, though, is a comparably lower cost and much more approachable tool set.

What Features Should I Look for in Airbnb Accounting Software?

Listing a property on Airbnb and collecting rental income is relatively straightforward. Hosts can face problems tracking Airbnb expenses and understanding tax rules and hidden fees. Rental managers come from numerous circumstances and situations, so we’ve tried to cover our bases — and yours — with a sampling of some of the best accounting app options. The list below consists of a collection of industry-agnostic financial tools, apps designed with short-term rental managers in mind and some that bridge the gap via integrations and add-ons.

• You need to keep track of your income, calculate expenses, take advantage of tax deductions, and make financial projections.
• Some users find it a bit overwhelming at first because of the sheer number of features available.
• This feature provides you with real-time access to your financial health, letting you generate annual reports, balance sheets, profit and loss statements, and cash flow statements easily.
• As your income from Airbnb grows, staying on top of your finances becomes increasingly important.
• They provide you with a detailed booking history, making it simple to keep track of and provide a record of the time your property was being rented to guests.
• If, instead, you’re working with dozens or hundreds of rentals, you may need something that can support the entirety of your business.

If you are a QuickBooks user with listings on Airbnb, Bnbtally is a powerful integration that automates your accounting processes. Escapia is the best accounting software for short-term rentals, while FreshBooks is what I recommend for ease of use and reasonable pricing. For a free basic option that lets you track income and expenses, Wave is a good choice. While Quickbooks Online is great for general Airbnb accounting, it’s not designed for rental property management. There is a learning curve for the setup that requires you to enter income and expenses manually.

• With FreshBooks’ invoice status reports, you can see whether a guest has viewed, paid, or is yet to pay an invoice.
• Luckily, you don’t have to be an accounting expert to handle bookkeeping and accounting for your Airbnb business.
• Hosts must subtract eligible expenses to accurately report taxable income and only pay taxes on the net income.
• That’s why it’s always worth investing a bit more in accounting software that fits your needs.
• With FreshBooks, managing your Airbnb accounting becomes a breeze, not a chore.

Introducing Clearing’s Partnership with Lodgify: Efficient Vacation Rental Trust Accounting and Bookkeeping

Other powerful features of Instabook include expense tracking, receipt scanning, payment processing, and financial reporting. Key features like voice-enabled data entry and AI-powered account classifier aim to deliver efficient and exact financial management, making it the best bookkeeping software for Airbnb hosts. FreshBooks is affordable user-friendly cloud-based accounting software designed for small businesses. In Bnbtally, you can assign a unique class tracking category to each line item.

Best Airbnb Accounting Software Tools for 2024

Additionally, managers can use Escapia to create and send rental agreements to tenants and track unsigned contractors with real-time data in the dashboard. They can even track money across accounts, manage recurring owner charges, simplify year-end reports like 1099s and 1042s, and more. I highly recommend Baselane for landlords needing a free solution for managing multiple units. Its bookkeeping and property management features are completely free to use, and once you sign up, these features are immediately available. Wave is accounting software that’s completely free and it can be connected to your PMS of petty cash choice via Zapier.

Bookkeeping Software for Airbnb Businesses

Your Airbnb tax report will only include gross earnings, withholdings, and adjustments for using the rental site. If you don’t want to foot the tax bill on your gross rental income, you’re responsible for keeping tabs on the rest. So many people raise red flags on tax returns because their financial accounting for Airbnb income is based solely on payouts received. You must also report your gross earnings (completed payouts) and allowable expenses.

• This is important because you want to avoid manually inserting data if possible and minimize the risk of any discrepancies in your data.
• Mainly that it doesn’t integrate with Airbnb, so you’ll have to enter your data manually.
• Remember, accuracy and organization pave the way for a stress-free tax season.
• If you’re only managing a handful of properties, then a less targeted solution may meet your needs.
• Many user-friendly vacation rental accounting software tools can help you automate your bookkeeping and accounting and allow you to forget about using spreadsheets.
• Stessa was made for property management, and especially for landlords and real estate investors like you.
• One significant advantage of hosting through Airbnb is the ability to deduct various expenses that would not be possible in a different type of business not located in your home.

She has owned Check Yourself, a bookkeeping and payroll service that specializes in small business, for over twenty years. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from UCLA and has served on the Board of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She also regularly writes about business for various consumer publications. Of course, you need to choose a tool that fits your budget, but don’t get hung up on Airbnb Accounting and Bookkeeping pricing alone.