Q: How does one handle utilities in suited houses where utilities are not separately metered?
A: We keep them in our name and calculate a fair split based on number of occupants and estimated usage. For example, a stay-at-home parent with a toddler will likely use more utilities than 2 working adults.
We tell applicants we base the utilities charge on last year's average, and the charge is subject to adjustment based on increased usage or price increases. The utilities charge is never included in the rent amount on the lease, rather the lease mentions the "utilities addendum" where the amount and terms are discussed.
As for bookkeeping, in QuickBooks all of our properties have a "class" and all of our tenants are "customers." Every penny is assigned to a property and to a tenant within that property. We can easily track utilities 'account' balances for each tenant with a Transaction Report. To create the report, I used filters to choose which accounts to use and which tenants to include (current tenants only). Once the report is "Memorized," we can check it any time in about 3 seconds. Handy for lease renewals and periodic adjustments.