Money
How to track rental property expenses
Published · Hovora
Tracking property expenses is less about bookkeeping than about capture. Most of what goes missing was never recorded, and by the time you are reconstructing it from a bank statement the useful detail — which property, what for — is gone.
Record it against the property, at the time
An expense has three pieces of information and only one of them survives on a bank statement. The amount is on the statement. Which property it was for, and what it was actually for, live in your head for about a week.
Record the expense when you pay it, with the property attached. Everything else can be tidied later.
Categories worth using
- Maintenance and repairs
- Utilities
- Insurance
- Property tax and government charges
- Management or agency fees
- Cleaning
- Supplies
- Mortgage interest, if you track it here
Keep the list short. Categories are for answering "where is the money going", and a list of thirty is a list nobody picks from consistently.
Properties in different currencies
If you own property in more than one country, each property spends in its own currency. A flat in Jakarta records rupiah; a condo in Kuala Lumpur records ringgit.
Adding those together produces a number that is not money. Any total across currencies needs an exchange rate, and an exchange rate needs a date and a source — which makes the result an estimate, not a record. Keep totals per currency and convert deliberately, once, when you actually need a combined figure.
Not every currency has two decimal places. Rupiah has none; Kuwaiti dinar has three. Software that assumes cents will quietly mis-round two thirds of the world.
Attach the receipt
A number without a receipt is fine until someone asks about it. Photograph the invoice when it arrives and attach it to the expense — this is the step that makes a year-end conversation short.