Using Customer and Class Fields in QuickBooks Online for Real Estate Bookkeeping

When it comes to real estate bookkeeping, clarity is everything. QuickBooks Online (QBO) offers two powerful tools, Customer and Class fields, that can significantly improve how you track financial performance across your properties.

Customer fields are ideal for tracking income and expenses by property or tenant. For example, each rental property can be set up as a “customer,” allowing you to quickly generate Profit & Loss reports by property. However, when you manage more than a couple of properties, relying on customers alone can make reports cluttered and difficult to interpret. Upgrading to QBO Plus unlocks a more scalable solution: Class tracking.

Class fields add an additional layer of insight and make reporting far cleaner and more efficient than using customers alone. Classes can be applied to nearly every transaction in QBO, making it easy to track long-term rentals, short-term rentals, and flips. With class-based reporting, you can compare performance across different real estate strategies.

When used together, Customer and Class tracking creates organized, easy-to-read financial reports that are simple to review, share with your CPA, and use for informed decision-making. For real estate investors, this setup delivers better visibility, fewer surprises, and greater confidence in their numbers.

If your QBO file isn’t set up to take full advantage of these features, a few strategic adjustments can make a big difference. Contact us today to get your real estate bookkeeping on track. A new year is the ideal time to restructure your books and build a strong financial foundation.