Bookkeeping for landlords, kept up to date every working day.

Why rental records fall behind

Rental income looks simple. A tenant pays rent each month and the money lands in the bank. In practice, a landlord's records fill up with small, irregular items that are easy to lose.

A boiler repair is paid by card. A letting agent takes its fee before paying over the rent. A tenant pays late, or pays part. A deposit goes into a protection scheme. Insurance renews once a year and the mortgage lender sends one statement a year. If these items are not recorded as they happen, they turn into a pile of paperwork in January.

We record them day by day in your own software, so the books match the bank and every cost has a document behind it.

Rent received, property by property

Rent is the core of the records. We match each rent payment in your bank feed to the right tenant and property. If a tenant pays late or short, it shows up straight away, rather than at the end of the year.

If you own more than one property, we record income and costs against each one wherever your software lets us tag transactions to a property. That way you can see which properties make money and which ones cost more than you thought.

Some receipts are not rent. A tenancy deposit is not rent, and it is usually held in a deposit protection scheme. If you later keep some of it to cover damage, HMRC's guidance says you can only claim repair costs above the amount you kept. Service charge and utility recharges can also need their own treatment. We keep these separate so your rental income figure is right.

Letting agent statements

Many landlords use a letting or managing agent. The agent collects the rent, takes its fee, pays for repairs and then sends you what is left, with a statement.

The trap is to record only the net amount that reaches your bank. That understates both your rent and your costs. We record the gross rent from the agent's statement, then post the agent's fees and any repairs the agent paid as separate expenses. The figures then add back to the amount you actually received. If a statement is missing, we ask for it.

Repairs, running costs and mortgage interest

HMRC lets landlords deduct allowable expenses from rental income. Its guidance gives examples such as general maintenance and repairs, letting agent and management fees, and accountant's fees. We record each cost in the right category, with the receipt or invoice attached where your software supports it.

• Repairs and improvements. A like-for-like repair is treated differently from an improvement to the property. We flag larger jobs so you or your accountant can decide which it is.
• Replacing furnishings. Replacing items such as furniture, appliances and kitchenware in a let property can fall under replacement of domestic items relief. We record these costs separately so they are easy to find.
• Mortgage payments. You cannot claim the full mortgage payment, only the interest part. For residential lets, Income Tax relief on finance costs is restricted to the basic rate. We split each payment into interest and capital, using your lender's statements, and keep finance costs apart from your other expenses.

Where a cost has no receipt, we list it and ask you about it, rather than guessing.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax changes how many landlords keep records and report to HMRC. You keep digital records in software that works with Making Tax Digital, send quarterly updates, and submit your tax return through that software after the tax year ends.

Whether you have to join depends on your qualifying income. For a landlord, that is your income from property and self-employment before expenses, so it is gross rent, not profit. HMRC's timetable is:

• Over £50,000 in 2024/25. You should have started from 6 April 2026.
• Over £30,000 in 2025/26. You will need to use it from 6 April 2027.
• Over £20,000 in 2026/27. You will need to use it from 6 April 2028.

Quarterly updates are cumulative. With standard update periods, the first runs from 6 April to 5 July and is due by 7 August. Later updates are due by 7 November, 7 February and 7 May. You can choose calendar periods instead, running from 1 April with the same deadlines, but you must switch before you send your first update of the tax year.

Each quarterly update is only as good as the records behind it. Because we keep your books current every working day, the figures are ready well before each deadline. Our guide on Making Tax Digital for landlords covers who has to join, exemptions and jointly owned property in more detail.

Property bookkeeping in your existing software

You keep your own software and your own subscription. We work in it as an invited user wherever the software supports that. We work in Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, Zoho Books, Clear Books, KashFlow, Pandle, QuickFile, FreshBooks and VT Transaction+, often with Dext, Hubdoc or AutoEntry for receipts.

If you are still on a spreadsheet and need to move to software for Making Tax Digital, we can talk through that on a free call. Choosing and paying for the software stays with you, and you can check HMRC's list of software that works with Making Tax Digital for Income Tax.

What is included, and what is quoted separately

Every package covers the same daily work: bookkeeping every UK working day in your existing software, bank reconciliation and receipt matching, finance inbox monitoring, missing invoices and receipts followed up, and a monthly financial summary in plain English.

Some work sits outside the monthly packages and is quoted separately. That includes Self Assessment tax returns, catch-up work on older records, payroll and statutory filings. If your rental records are behind, we can bring them up to date first with catch-up bookkeeping.

Records matter after the return is filed too. Our guide on how long to keep business records explains what to keep and for how long.