Landlord Software or a Spreadsheet?
The original version of this post was written for a US audience. We rewrote it for Ontario, kept only facts we could source, and linked each one. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.
Plenty of landlords run their rentals from a spreadsheet, and for one unit that's often fine. Here's an honest look at where a spreadsheet stops being enough.
Where a spreadsheet is fine
- One unit, one tenant, a simple lease.
- You enter rent and expenses as they happen, and you're comfortable with formulas.
- You keep receipts and the lease somewhere you can find them.
Where it starts to strain
- Recurring items. Rent, mortgage, insurance and property tax repeat every month or year. A spreadsheet only knows about them if you type them in, every time.
- More than one unit. Totals by unit, by building and for everything you own become a tangle of tabs and formulas.
- The record behind the numbers. A spreadsheet holds amounts, not the story: the call about the late payment, the photo of the water damage, the signed lease.
- Receipts for tenants. You end up making them in a separate document.
- Year-end. Pulling an income statement together means re-checking every formula.
What landlord software adds
Software built for landlords logs recurring rent and costs on schedule, keeps each unit's tenants, lease, documents and dated notes together, sends rent receipts, and produces reports by unit or property when you need them. That's what Rentingwell does, and it's free for one or two units.
A fair way to decide
If you spend more than a few minutes a month keeping the spreadsheet right, or you've ever had to hunt for a receipt or a date, it's worth trying software. You can export your finances whenever you want, so you're not locked in.