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Assigning Transactions & Reporting: Portfolios, Properties, and Units
Assigning Transactions & Reporting: Portfolios, Properties, and Units

One of Stessa's core features is the ease with which you can track and report on income and expenses by portfolio, property, and/or unit.

Victor Perez avatar
Written by Victor Perez
Updated over a week ago

Your Transactions Page

Actual income and expenses are tracked on your Transactions page. That's where you'll categorize your line items and assign them to a portfolio, property, and/or unit. You'll also run reports like an Income Statement, Net Cash Flow, and CapEx directly from the Transactions page.

There are three ways to add transactions to your Stessa account:

Once your income and expense data is showing up on your Transactions page, you can then make edits directly, assign categories, and decide whether you want to associate the transaction with a portfolio, property, and/or specific unit. You can also perform some of these actions on multiple transactions at once, with bulk edits.

Portfolio-Level Expenses

Sometimes you'll have an expense item, like mileage or insurance, for example, that doesn't make sense to assign directly to any single property. As long as you have at least two properties set up in Stessa, these "portfolio-level" expenses can be assigned to a Portfolio instead. To do this, simply select the Portfolio name from the drop-down selector under "Property" on your Transactions page.

Note that portfolio-level expenses are not technically allocated to the actual Properties within the Portfolio. They are instead accounted for in a separate "Portfolio" bucket, which is then reported in its own column at far right on your Income Statement, Net Cash Flow report, etc. If you want an expense allocated directly to multiple Properties (or Units), you'll need to use the Split feature instead.

Property Assignment

Accurately tying income and expenses to the correct Property is essential if you want to take advantage of Stessa's full capabilities. If you have a dedicated bank account that's only used for a single Property, you can associate the account directly such that all transactions imported from that account will be automatically assigned to the chosen Property. To set this up, visit your Connected Accounts and select the Property from the drop-down selector to the right of the account name.

If you're uploading data via CSV or QIF file, you have two options. You can associate the entire file with a Property at the moment of upload or you can include a "Property" column in your file prior to upload. Property addresses must be a perfect match to your Stessa account in order for the system to properly associate the transaction.

It's also worth noting that if you only have one property set up in Stessa, all transactions will automatically be assigned to that Property by default. In this circumstance, you won't even see a "Property" column on your Transactions page. Portfolio-level expenses will not be available until you add a second Property.

Unit Assignment

Optionally, you can also assign any transaction directly to a Unit when it makes sense. First, make sure the transaction is assigned to a Property. Assuming you have multiple Units set up on your Leases & Tenants page, an option to "All Units" will then appear underneath the Property name. Click and then select the appropriate Unit.

If the transaction is automatically created and not assigned to a unit, you can update the unit assignment by clicking +Assign to the unit.

This feature is perhaps most powerful when it comes to rental income. Assigning rents received to actual units is the best way to keep track of who's paying on time, late, or not at all. You can also use Unit assignments to track "Other Income" like parking or storage revenue at a more granular level.

Associating certain expenses with specific Units can also give you a critical layer of insight into what's going on at a particular Property. Is one problem unit generating 90% of all Repairs & Maintenance expenses? Is there an outlier when it comes to Utilities? We've also seen quite a few investors using this feature to track CapEx projects like kitchen and bathroom remodels at the Unit level.

Reporting

All of Stessa's reports, including the Income Statement, Net Cash Flow, Balance Sheet, Capital Expenses, Tax Package, and Stress Test are available at the Portfolio, Property, and Unit levels. To run a report based on actual income and expense data, visit the Reports page.

How to Run Reports in Stessa

  1. Select the type of Report you'd like to run

  2. Choose All Properties, a Portfolio, or a single Property

  3. Select the Date Range (default is "Year to Date")

  4. Select By Month, By Property, By Unit, or Combined
    โ€‹Note that you will only see "By Property" if you've selected a Portfolio above, and you'll only see "By Unit" if you've selected a specific Property above. "By Month" will give you a separate column for each calendar month of your selected Date Range, on a consolidated basis. "By Property" will give you a separate column for each Property in the Portfolio. "By Unit" will give you a separate column for each Unit in the selected Property. "Combined" generates a single column with all data aggregated over the Date Range.

  5. Leave "By Category" selected to see all data aggregated to the top-level categories only. Switch to "By Sub-Category" if you want to see each relevant sub-category on a separate line.

  6. Click the "Download" button to grab a copy of the Report in either Excel or PDF format.

Some Reports are Clickable Too

Running reports is also a great way to hunt for missing transactions and confirm that all of your data is being captured properly. The Income Statement and Net Cash Flow reports include clickable shortcuts, that automatically apply the relevant filters to the Transactions page. To try it out, just run either report and then hover over (or tap on mobile) any numerical figure. Click (or tap) the number to shortcut to the Transactions page and see the underlying transactions for that figure on the report.

Here's how it works on mobile:

Have Questions About Transactions & Reporting?

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