Rental Property & Landlord Tracker
This rental property tracker keeps rent, arrears, expenses and mortgage interest per property, and reconciles what the bank account actually did with what the tax return is going to say.
A property that looks profitable across a year can be losing money in two of its months, and the mortgage payment does not care which. Worse, the money left in the account and the profit you will be taxed on are two different numbers, and most landlords only meet the gap between them once the year is closed. This file keeps both, per property and per month, from rows you type once.
What is in it
- Fourteen linked tabs and 1,937 live formulas, sized for up to 20 units, with a worked six-unit portfolio already filled in.
- RENT ROLL — 300 lines of rent due against rent received, so arrears are a figure rather than a feeling.
- EXPENSES — 400 lines, each tagged to the property and the category it belongs to, and separated into running costs and capital spending.
- MORTGAGE — up to 20 loans split into interest and capital, because only one half of the payment reduces the taxable profit.
- CASH vs PROFIT — the tab that reconciles the money that left your account with the taxable figure, line by line.
- BY PROPERTY, BY MONTH and BY CATEGORY cut the same rows three ways, and MAINTENANCE, MILEAGE and TURNOVER hold 80 jobs, 100 trips and 30 turnovers — the costs that never appear on a rent statement.
Who it is for
Landlords with one property or a portfolio of up to twenty units, who let and manage directly and keep their own records. It is also the file to put in front of an accountant or a mortgage broker, because it separates rent from arrears, interest from capital, and repairs from improvements before anyone asks.
The worked example
The example inside is a six-unit portfolio filled in for a full year, and it is built around one uncomfortable fact. Across that year the portfolio is down $5,640 in cash and shows a taxable profit of $4,669. Both numbers are right, and the CASH vs PROFIT tab lays out the $10,309 gap line by line — $7,980 of the year’s spending is capital, real money out of the account that is not deductible this year.
Per property, the same year reads differently again. Cedar Lane runs at minus 14.5% and Rose Street at plus 17%, but averaged together the portfolio looks fine at 1.2%. Sixty-two days empty at Cedar Lane cost $4,900 once the clean and the letting fee were counted — 2.9 months of rent — and on the mortgage side 76% of the Cedar Lane payment is interest against 49% at Alder Road.
How it works
Compatible with Microsoft Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice. No macros, no add-ons, no account to create, nothing to install.
The download has two workbooks: one with the example above already filled in, so you can see what every column expects, and the same file completely blank for your own figures. A plain-English guide comes as a PDF. Buy it on Etsy — $9
Sold through my Etsy shop, ThePlainLedger, so the download, the payment and the buyer protection are all handled by Etsy.
Questions people actually ask
Why is my rental account down but my tax return shows a profit?
Because cash and taxable profit measure different things, and the CASH vs PROFIT tab reconciles them line by line. In the worked six-unit portfolio the year is $5,640 down in cash yet shows $4,669 of taxable profit — a $10,309 gap. Most of it is the $7,980 of capital spending and the capital half of the mortgage payments, neither of which is deductible in the year you pay it.
Is this worth it if I only have one rental property?
Yes — the file runs from one unit up to twenty, and with one property the per-property tabs simply have a single row. The arrears, void, interest and capital splits are the same arithmetic whether you own one flat or six, and one property is where a two-month void hurts most.
I have not kept proper records this year. Can I still start?
Yes — start with the current month and add earlier months from your bank statements as you find them. Every tab reads whatever rows exist, so a half-filled file still totals correctly, and the worked six-unit portfolio ships alongside the blank copy so you can see what each column expects before you type anything.
Do I need Excel to use it?
No — it is built as .xlsx but runs in Google Sheets and LibreOffice too. For Google Sheets use File, then Import, then Upload, and choose Replace spreadsheet; all 1,937 formulas carry over. Excel 2016 or newer works on both Windows and Mac.
Does it connect to my bank or file my taxes?
No — there is no bank feed, no automation and no login of any kind; you type the rows in yourself. It is not tax software and there is no amortisation schedule in it, and it works in one currency. What it produces is the set of figures an accountant asks for, not a filed return.
Need it built around your business?
This file assumes you let the properties yourself, in one currency, and keep records on a calendar year. If your setup is different — an agent collecting the rent and taking commission before it reaches you, properties held inside a company, service charges recharged to tenants, or a mix of long lets and short stays under one roof — I can rebuild the same arithmetic around the way your rent actually arrives.
All other templates are listed on the Excel & Google Sheets Templates page.