What Is A Rent Ledger And Why Do You Need One?

Having access to advanced reporting features for your rental property business will allow you to gain deeper insights into the performance of your portfolio and better understand what actions need to be taken to improve profitability.

A rent ledger is specifically useful for several reasons. Firstly, as it shows the amount of rent collected and the amount of rent expected, so you can quickly see any discrepancies in rent payments by your tenants. Secondly, it can be used as a supporting document should you need to go through an eviction process with your tenant due to non-payment of rent.

For this to be useful, it is important to keep up-to-date records. Find out how Landlord Studio can help you track and report your income and expenses accurately.

What exactly is a rent ledger?

The rent ledger is a physical record or document which details a complete payment history of your tenancies. Additionally, it should show the expected amount of rent for the report date range. The ledger should also have the associated tenant information so that you know which tenant is responsible for any overdue or upcoming rent.

The rent ledger is a summary document of rent payments, broken down by rental unit and lease, and will tell you if a tenant still owes rent and if so which tenant you need to contact to resolve this.

Why do you need a rent ledger report?

Your rental properties should be treated as a business. And as part of this business, you should be keeping careful and detailed records of all your income and expenses broken down by unit and lease. This will allow you to not only gain a clear overview of the total amount of income the property is generating but also you’ll be able to quickly see which tenant or tenants are behind on their rent, and where the discrepancies are between expected rent and actual rent collected.

Secondly, should you be in the unfortunate situation of needing to pursue an eviction action because of non-payment of rent, having an accurate and up-to-date rent ledger will act as evidence of the tenants’ non-payment of rent as well as evidence of rent or other fees actually collected?

How to use a rent ledger in the case of an eviction action?

The rent ledger can be used to help support your eviction case by acting as evidence that the tenant has breached the lease agreement by not paying rent. Additionally, it will help you ensure that your rental income data is accurate.

For this report to be admissible as evidence it needs to be kept up to date. This means in most cases entering the income received the day of the payment being received. Thankfully, with cloud-based software like Landlord Studio, you can easily manage your accounts on the go – and if you use our online rent collection feature this will actually be entirely automated.

When bringing forth an eviction case you will need to prove the following:

1. That you own the property. Eg. the property deeds.
2. That there is a written or oral rental agreement that specifies the monthly rent amount eg. that you have a lease agreement for the tenancy signed by both parties.
3. The date that the lease agreement was breached by the tenant failing to pay their rent. Eg. the rent ledger report.
4. Proof that you have provided the appropriate notice. Such as serving them a “pay rent” or “quit notice” with an appropriate amount of notice supplied as stipulated by your local or state laws. Eg. a dated copy of the pay rent or quit notice you sent.

Having the rent ledger to hand will allow you to accurately fill out and send the pay rent or quit notice – filling the wrong amount of rent owed on the notice will immediately invalidate it – and in some states can be used as proof that the tenant has breached the lease contract.

Landlord Studio’s Rent Ledger Report

Landlord Studio has a Rent Ledger report that you can instantly generate whenever you need or want as a .csv file or PDF. You can then either download or share directly from the software.

* First 3 properties free.

Landlord Studio’s reports are customizable. They are filtered by property, date range, plus income and expense categories for granular insights into specific properties as well as greater general insight into your portfolio as a whole.

Is Landlord Studio the right solution for you? Watch these Landlord Studio reviews →

The Importance of Reporting with Landlord Studio

Running regular reports for your rental property business is the best way to maintain clear oversight of your financials.

With Landlord Studio you can run over 15 advanced reports at any time through the app or via our desktop portal. Gain deep insights into your property portfolio’s performance and better understand what actions need to be taken to improve profitability. And of course, make filing your end-of-year taxes easier and faster than ever before.

We are constantly updating our reports, adding new ones, and improving the reporting functionality based on user feedback.

* First 3 properties free.

We hope you found this article interesting! However, do note that it should not be used as a substitute for competent legal and/or other advice from a licensed professional. Make this easier by inviting your Accountant into Landlord Studio for reporting access.