How do you track each rental property with classes in QuickBooks Online?
Turn on class tracking, create one class for each property, and tag every income and expense line with its property's class. Then a profit and loss report by class shows each property's results side by side. Class tracking is limited to some QuickBooks plans (Intuit's pricing page lists it on Plus and Advanced), so check your plan first. Classes only separate properties inside one company file: if each property is its own LLC, most accountants prefer a separate QuickBooks company for each one.
What a class does in QuickBooks
A class is a label you attach to a transaction line to say which part of the business it belongs to. A chart of accounts says what kind of money it is (rent, repairs, insurance). A class says whose it is (Oak Street, Maple Court). A report can then filter or split by class, so you see repairs for Oak Street alone.
For a landlord this is the cheapest way to get a profit and loss for each property without keeping a separate set of books. Intuit's pricing page lists class and location tracking on the Plus and Advanced plans, and does not list it on the lower tiers, so read the current page before you rely on it.
Set up classes in five steps
- Open the company's account and settings, find the advanced settings, and turn on class tracking (if your plan offers it).
- Choose whether to warn when a transaction is not assigned a class. Turning this warning on catches most of the mistakes that make reports wrong later.
- Create one class for each property, named the way you name it everywhere else, for example the street address.
- Add a class called something like Owner or Shared for expenses that are not a property's, such as an accounting fee for the whole company.
- Tag each line when you enter or categorize a transaction. Do it in bank feed rules too, so a recurring bill goes to the right property each time.
Menu names change as Intuit updates the product. If a label here does not match your screen, search the help page for "class tracking."
Read the profit and loss by class
Run the profit and loss report and choose to show columns by class. Each property gets its own column, with a total. Compare rent, repairs and net income across columns to see which property carries the cost.
Example a made-up owner has two properties in one QuickBooks company. For October, Oak Street shows rent of $3,200 and expenses of $1,150, so net income of $2,050. Maple Court shows rent of $2,700 and expenses of $2,300, so net income of $400. The total column shows rent of $5,900, expenses of $3,450 and net income of $2,450, which is $2,050 + $400.
If a line has no class, it lands in a column called not specified. A large not specified column means classes were missed. Fix it by editing those transactions, not by changing the report.
Classes or a separate company for each LLC?
Classes split one company's books. They do not split legal entities. If each property is its own LLC, each LLC has its own bank account, its own tax return filing and its own liability protection. Mixing them in one QuickBooks company can make clean statements for each LLC harder to produce and is something to raise with your CPA.
| Situation | Common choice |
|---|---|
| One LLC owns several properties | One company, one class for each property |
| Each property is its own LLC | A separate company for each LLC, so the books match the entity |
| Personal name owns the properties | One company with classes, if your accountant agrees |
That table is a common pattern, not tax advice. Your CPA knows how your entities are taxed and how your returns are prepared, so ask before you set up the file.
How DoorKeeping handles it
DoorKeeping connects to QuickBooks Online. You connect each LLC's QuickBooks company from doorkeeping.com, and Claude or ChatGPT can read its profit and loss or trial balance and compare it with DoorKeeping's books. DoorKeeping proposes how your accounts and properties map to QuickBooks, with each property as a class, and it creates a missing account or class only after you approve. A daily summary journal entry of your closed books, tagged with each property's class, goes to QuickBooks only after you accept the sync. DoorKeeping keeps its own books for each LLC too. It costs $2 per unit per month with $0 in other fees.
Sources
- Intuit, QuickBooks Online plans and pricing (feature comparison), read Oct 30, 2026
- IRS Publication 527, Residential Rental Property, read Oct 30, 2026
Questions
- Which QuickBooks Online plans have class tracking?
- Intuit's pricing page lists class and location tracking on Plus and Advanced, not on the lower tiers, on 2026-10-30. Plans change, so confirm on the current page before you buy or upgrade.
- Should I use classes or locations for properties?
- Either can work, because both let you split reports. Pick one and use it for every transaction. Many landlords use classes because they are simple to filter in reports.
- Can I add classes to old transactions?
- Yes. Edit each transaction and add the class, or use a bulk edit tool if your plan has one. Run the profit and loss by class afterward and look for the not specified column.