Insightful Accountant Publisher Gary DeHart caught up with Landlord Studio's Logan Ransley at their booth at the recent Xerocon 2022 event in New Orleans. (The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.)
Gary DeHart: Hi, I'm Gary DeHart with Insightful Accountant and I am here at the Landlord Studio booth speaking with Logan Ransley. What do you do?
Logan Ransley: I'm one of the co-founders. I also look after all the accounts and partnerships.
Gary DeHart: How do the accounting professionals fit into your model? What's in it for them and their customers? Can you give us an overview?
Logan Ransley: Landlords Studios is a property management and bookkeeping software. We simplify the bookkeeping process for all your Schedule E 1040 clients. At tax time, essentially, what happens, is it just streamlines that entire process. We make it super easy for them to get all the information into the product. With our Xero integration, it all flows into the Xero ledger, pre reconciled saving heaps of time.
That's really the fundamental kind of product itself in the bookkeeping sites. We also have a number of different property management features on the outside, which help better manage the property as a whole. If they are self-managing, it helps them be better business owners generally. It's really just to help those landlords or those Schedule E 1040 clients.
Gary DeHart: You say it helps them better manage property. Is it as a whole? Are we talking about, you have a busted pipe and it needs to be fixed? It's just tracking all of those things?
Logan Ransley: Yes. The core product is bookkeeping, but essentially, we have these features on the outside, which just help manage maintenance requests, receive rent payments faster online. We have a whole system to facilitate payments. We have things like tenant screening, so if they want to find good tenants, they can run a credit background check.
It's all these kinds of value-added business features that really help manage the property a lot better—anywhere up to 50 properties is a great solution, a great fit for them. Particularly for those who are trying to just be better business owners, they want to be real estate investors, they want to build that as their long-term wealth generation business.
Gary DeHart: You said up to 50.
Logan Ransley: We have users that have 100 to 200 properties, but typically find that these kinds of 1040 clients at anywhere between one up to 50. That's really where we've kind of put on.
Gary DeHart: How do you work with the accounting community?
Logan Ransley: Great question. Because the product itself is a bookkeeping solution, at the core, it's helping accountants get the information they need during tax time. The way we partner with accountants is sort of partnership programs similar to many of the other app partners. This gives you wholesale pricing—resources to help grow your real estate practice if you're looking to kind of narrow down and get more of those clients.
A lot of these kinds of value-added things just help you make a bit of business, counting-wise, but ultimately, for the client, it's a value-added tool. So if you want to add more value to these specific clients by providing them with software, that's what we could have.
Gary DeHart: Do you do any? Is there a formal program?
Logan Ransley: Yes, it's a partnership program. Somebody can jump on a call with our team and we talk you through the whole process.
To learn more and see a product demo, register for the Xero-Landlord Studio webinar HERE
Gary DeHart: Is there any other training like market-specific training and things like that?
Logan Ransley: Yes. We include webinars and training for the staff as well. We host webinars with accountants to basically go through the products and train the landlords on how to use the software. We also help them with marketing material.
Gary DeHart: Is it a fully standalone bookkeeping solution?
Logan Ransley: Yes.
Gary DeHart: You do integrate with Xero? Are there any other General Ledger you integrate with?
Logan Ransley: Not at the moment. Xero’s the main one. Standalone is important. It's great for basic needs and accounting. If you have more complex needs, you would go the integration road with Xero, which integrates with the licenses down to your ledger, cash books products.
But yes, it does act as a standalone product. We have all the financial reporting as well, so, accountants can go into the product and then run those reports simply from inside Landlord Studio.
Gary DeHart: Since you are in New Zealand, what’s the US presence or availability if someone has a problem? Who do they call?
Logan Ransley: Like Xero, we were founded in New Zealand. Our headquarters is based down there. Eighty percent of our businesses are in the US and 20% are in the UK. We work US hours. We have our head of sales and other team members here as well. Many of our partners reside in the US so we consider ourselves US-based.
If you want to learn more about Landlord Studio, visit our website. You can find information on our partnership program and view one of the webinars that we have done with Xero. Visit landlordstudio.com/xero.
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