Excel is the default for landlords managing 1-3 properties. But as your portfolio grows, spreadsheets become a liability, not an asset. Here's when and why to make the switch.
These aren't theoretical. They're the actual problems that come up at tax time, at a refinancing meeting, or at 11pm when a formula breaks.
One broken cell reference ripples through your entire sheet. You might file a tax return based on wrong numbers and never know until an audit.
Every receipt, every payment, every expense has to be typed in by hand. One missed transaction means your books are wrong.
Schedule E requires specific line items that your spreadsheet wasn't designed to output. Hours of manual reconciliation every February.
Drop a mortgage statement or tax bill on Excel and nothing happens. You still have to read it, find the numbers, and type them in yourself.
Your Excel file sits unencrypted on your desktop, in email attachments, or on OneDrive. Property addresses, mortgage amounts, and net worth, all exposed.
Want cap rate, cash-on-cash return, and equity across all your properties? You'd need to build those formulas yourself, and keep them working as the spreadsheet grows.
| Capability |
SealedFolio
|
XL
Excel
|
|---|---|---|
| CSV import from bank statements | Manual | |
| AI document scanning (OCR + extraction) | ||
| Schedule E (US) tax report | Build it yourself | |
| T776 Canadian tax report | ||
| Local encrypted vault | ||
| Cap rate, cash-on-cash, ROI auto-calculation | Build it yourself | |
| Tenant profiles and rent payment history | Manual rows | |
| Amortization schedules | Build it yourself | |
| Legal form templates | ||
| Formula error protection | ||
| Works without Internet (no OneDrive/Google Sheets dependency) | Local only |
You don't lose anything. Your years of transaction history come with you.
In Excel, File > Save As > CSV. One file per property or all in one, either works.
SealedFolio's import wizard lets you map your column headers to the right fields. Date, amount, category, description.
Your historical data is imported, categorized, and encrypted immediately. No more unprotected spreadsheet files.
SealedFolio isn't for someone just starting with their first property. If one property and one spreadsheet is working fine, that's okay. But once you have 3 or more properties, multiple tenants, dozens of monthly transactions, and looming tax season, the spreadsheet becomes a second job.
SealedFolio replaces the spreadsheet with a purpose-built app that understands real estate. Transactions have property and expense categories built in. Tax reports are generated at the click of a button. Documents are scanned automatically. Rent rolls are live, not manually maintained.
And unlike cloud tools, it doesn't require giving up your data to do it. Everything stays on your device, encrypted with the same algorithms used to protect classified government data. Available for Mac and Windows.
Join the waitlist. Import your CSV in minutes. Get back hours every tax season.
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