Question 1

I only have 3 doors. Is this overkill?

Accepted Answer

No. Starter is built specifically for 1–5 properties at $4.99/mo. The sweet spot is the door range where a spreadsheet starts becoming a job by itself — usually around the third or fourth property.

Question 2

I have 30+ doors. Is this still enough for me?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Pro covers unlimited properties, and Net Operating Income (NOI) / Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) / cap rate per property, Plaid bank and mortgage sync, and the CPA tax export are designed to scale to portfolios in the 30+ door range. Keystone IQ is positioned between investor-focused tools like Stessa on one end and property-manager platforms like AppFolio on the other — closer to the investor side of that spectrum.

Question 3

I use a property manager who sends me a monthly owner packet. Will that work?

Accepted Answer

Yes — owner packets are the hardest document type we handle, and we built a dedicated AI processor for them. Drop the PDF into Keystone IQ and the transactions in the packet (rent, repairs, PM fee, reserves) are extracted as line items on the right property. You review the extraction in the queue before relying on the numbers downstream.

Question 4

I self-manage. Do I need this?

Accepted Answer

If you're entering rent receipts, late fees, and repair invoices by hand into a spreadsheet, yes. Self-managers get the most out of Rent Roll — it shows Expected, Received, and Outstanding for the month at a glance, and you mark each payment received in one click. No property manager means the PM-fee math is simply skipped.

Question 5

Does it work for short-term rentals / Airbnb?

Accepted Answer

Yes — short-term rentals are first-class. Toggle a property to short-term and you get a reservations table (Airbnb CSV import; direct bookings entered manually), per-night metrics — Average Daily Rate, Revenue Per Available Night, Occupancy, Average Length of Stay — on the dashboard, a personal-use day tracker that flags you as you approach the IRS limit, a draft tax-form view per property, and the matching tax export at year end. Long-term rental features (lease tracking, Rent Roll) automatically hide on short-term properties so you don't see 'lease expiring' alerts on your Airbnb.

Question 6

Can it handle a mix of long-term and short-term rentals?

Accepted Answer

Yes — that's exactly what the per-property toggle is built for. Set each property to long-term, short-term, or mixed-use. The dashboard aggregates both rental types. The tax export drafts entries for the appropriate tax form per property, with mortgage interest split correctly. One ledger, both rental types — no double-tooling. Always confirm final tax-form selection with your CPA.

Question 7

How is this different from a short-term rental channel manager?

Accepted Answer

They're complementary, not competing. Channel managers run your bookings — guest messaging, multi-platform calendar sync, dynamic pricing. We run your books — the ledger, the per-property metrics, the personal-use day tracker, the year-end tax export. Investors with mixed portfolios typically keep their channel manager and use Keystone IQ for the financial and tax side.

Question 8

Will it work for my LLC structure?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Each property tags to an entity, and Schedule E / Form 8825 exports split by entity. A Consolidated rollup sums any properties you've grouped together — the typical pattern is one LLC = one group.

Question 9

What happens when I drop in a PDF?

Accepted Answer

The AI reads the document, pulls out vendor, date, amount, and category, matches it to the right property, and writes the rows to your ledger. Mortgage statements split into Interest and Principal automatically. Owner packets are expanded line by line. Every extracted row is tagged with its source in the Review queue, so you can spot-check, edit, or remove anything before relying on the numbers downstream.

Question 10

Does it read scanned receipts and phone photos, or only clean PDFs?

Accepted Answer

Both. Scanned PDFs, phone photos of receipts, and clean digital invoices all work. Messy scans are slower but supported.

Question 11

What does Plaid actually connect to, and what can it see?

Accepted Answer

On Pro, Plaid links your bank accounts (for transaction import) and your mortgage servicer (for live loan balances and amortization). Read-only access — Plaid cannot move money. Revoke any connection from Settings whenever you want.

Question 12

How is mortgage principal vs. interest tracked?

Accepted Answer

Either upload monthly statements (Starter and Pro), or connect your servicer via Plaid (Pro). Either way, every payment splits into Interest and Principal, and equity builds correctly on the dashboard from each property's amortization schedule.

Question 13

How long does setup take?

Accepted Answer

Add a property, drop in a few PDFs, see your numbers. Most people see a usable dashboard inside 15 minutes. There's no chart of accounts to configure — real estate categories are built in.

Question 14

You hold my bank balances and my tenants’ info. What happens if you get hacked?

Accepted Answer

Every customer's data is isolated at the database level by organization ID — your rows are unreachable from another customer's session. Everything is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and in transit with TLS 1.3. We host on Google Cloud Platform. The full picture lives on the Trust & Security page.

Question 15

Will my documents be used to train AI?

Accepted Answer

No — and the answer has two parts. The AI extraction runs on Google's Gemini Enterprise (via Vertex AI), Google Cloud's product for businesses. Google's published terms for it commit “not to use customer data to train or fine-tune any of Google's generative artificial intelligence models…without customer's prior permission or instruction.” On our side, your document is processed in memory during extraction and discarded after — we don't keep copies of files to train on either.

Question 16

Where is the data hosted?

Accepted Answer

Google Cloud Platform, US region.

Question 17

I already use Stessa. Why switch?

Accepted Answer

Stessa is free, and a lot of investors start there. Based on Stessa's own publicly available product documentation, transaction entry on the standard tier is largely manual, and portfolio metrics like DSCR are not advertised as a built-in feature. Keystone IQ is built around AI document extraction and ships those metrics out of the box. Features and pricing on either side change frequently; verify the current state on each provider's website before deciding.

Question 18

I use QuickBooks. How is this different?

Accepted Answer

QuickBooks is built for general business accounting. Investors typically adapt it to rentals using classes, sub-accounts, or a custom chart of accounts — but real-estate concepts (properties, tenants, leases, NOI, DSCR, cap rate) are not built in out of the box on the standard tier, and that setup work falls on you. Keystone IQ ships real-estate-native: properties, leases, NOI, DSCR, owner-packet parsing, and a CPA-ready Schedule E / Form 8825 export are there on day one. QuickBooks evolves; verify current capabilities on Intuit's website if you're undecided.

Question 19

I keep everything in a spreadsheet that works fine.

Accepted Answer

If your spreadsheet still works for you, you probably don't need this yet. If reconciling each month is starting to feel like a job, the 14-day trial will tell you fast.

Question 20

Do I have to re-enter my entire history?

Accepted Answer

No. Most people start with the current month and let the AI catch up from there as PDFs arrive. If you want a clean YTD picture for tax export, drop in this year's owner packets, mortgage statements, and bank exports — the AI handles the backfill.

Question 21

I have a CPA. Does this replace them?

Accepted Answer

No — Keystone IQ is a software tool for record-keeping and portfolio analytics, not a tax, accounting, or financial advisory service. What it does is make the prep cleaner: the export generates a Schedule E or Form 8825 draft with line items categorized into the relevant tax lines, plus a CSV your CPA can audit and adjust. They review, verify, and sign off — you keep the professional relationship. Always consult a licensed CPA or qualified tax professional for actual filings and financial decisions.

Question 22

Do I need a credit card to start?

Accepted Answer

No. 14-day free trial, no card required.

Question 23

What happens after the trial ends?

Accepted Answer

You pick Starter ($4.99/mo) or Pro ($14.99/mo Founders Launch pricing, locked for 12 months from your signup). If you don't pick a plan, your account pauses — nothing is charged.

Question 24

Can I switch between Starter and Pro?

Accepted Answer

Yes, either direction, from your account settings. Prorated.

Question 25

Monthly or annual?

Accepted Answer

Both. Annual saves roughly 17% — Starter is $49/year, Pro is $149/year. Switch between billing cycles whenever.

Question 26

What’s the Founders Launch?

Accepted Answer

The $14.99/mo Pro price is locked for the first 12 months for everyone who signs up during the launch period. After 12 months you move to whatever standard pricing is at the time. No “first 100 only” countdown — it's time-bound, not capped.

Question 27

Will the price go up later?

Accepted Answer

Standard Pro pricing after the Founders Launch period will be higher than $14.99. Anyone who signs up during the launch keeps $14.99 for 12 months from their signup date.

Question 28

Can I cancel anytime?

Accepted Answer

Yes. One click from Settings → Billing. No contract, no cancellation call, no “are you sure” loop.

Question 29

What happens to my data if I cancel?

Accepted Answer

You have 30 days to export everything — full CSV of your ledger, the CPA tax export PDF + Excel, and every document in the Vault. After 30 days the org is permanently deleted.

Question 30

What if Keystone IQ shuts down?

Accepted Answer

Your data exports as a CSV at any time, on any plan. Whatever happens to us, you walk away with a clean ledger and a tax-export package you can hand to your CPA.

Question 31

What if the AI gets a number wrong?

Accepted Answer

The AI is not infallible. Every extracted transaction is tagged with its source in the Review queue, so you can spot-check, edit, or remove any row. As with any record-keeping software, you (or your CPA) should review the numbers before relying on them for tax filings or financial decisions.

Questions, answered.

Is this for me?