Landlord Expenses Spreadsheet- Calculating & Tracking Your Profit & Loss

Landlord Expenses Spreadsheet

Buy-To-Let is a business, period.

Anyone that has a rental property is running a business, even those that push all the responsibilities onto a letting agent and dislocate themselves from the day-to-day operations.

I know many of my fellow peers don’t see it as a business, but rather a long term investment which just ‘works’ on its own accord in the background. While that may be the case, the fact still remains that your investment required investment, and in the short and/or long term you expect a good return, which is essentially the end-game of almost all profiteering businesses.

No one is in this game to come out at the other end poorer and uglier.

In order to measure the success rate of any profiteering business, expenses and revenue need to be tracked. It’s extremely important for landlords to measure how much they are putting into the pot and how much they’re squeezing out.

If a business is running at a loss, what is the point of running at all? More worryingly, what if you don’t know if you’re running at a loss?

How many landlords can tell me how much they spent on their investment in 2022?

How many landlords can easily tell me how much they spent on maintenance over 5 years?

I’m sure the numbers are woefully low.

The extent of how deep you want to go with your analysis is dependent on how far you want to dig, and to extent how big and complicated your property business is. But in reality, the average landlord with one or two properties will have no need for a complicated solution to track their finances. The basics will suffice; knowing the incoming and outgoing costs and expenses, and in return the net value.

But a lot of landlords don’t even do that, so they really have no idea how their investment – most likely their most expensive investment – is performing. That’s concerning and extremely counter-intuitive.

You don’t need any fancy apps or premium accounting software, a simple spreadsheet like the one available for download will get you started to help track your finances!

Landlord Expenses Spreadsheet

Snap shot of the Landlord Expenses Spreadsheet

It’s extremely rudimentary, it won’t win any awards for innovation, but it will do the job for the average landlord. Something is better than nothing!

It basically holds basic information about the tenant and property (useful for those with multiple properties), and most importantly, calculates all my incoming and outgoing expenses, which will ultimately allow you to know what’s going in and out.

I’m going to make the spreadsheet downloadable so you can use it, or perhaps get inspiration from it. If anyone has any suggestions or modifications they would like to see in the spreadsheet, please let me know.

Spreadsheets Vs Landlord Software – Which?

Using spreadsheets is a good start, and it’s definitely better than using sweet-nothing. No doubt about it.

However, I personally believe most landlords (of all sizes) would be better served using specialist landlord software, and that’s for a few reasons (I won’t go into too much detail in this post, because I’ve already done that in my landlord software post):

  • They’re relatively cheap (some are even available for free)
  • They make it much easier to track financials
  • They provide automated reports and charts
  • They provide way more useful features
  • They will make it easier to comply with the incoming change to the UK tax system in 2024, “Making Tax Digital”

My personal favourite bit of kit is Landlord Vision (it’s not free, but very fairly priced, in my opinion), and I’ve explained why in my Landlord Vision review. But there are plenty out there in the wild to choose from (once again, you can refer to my landlord software post for more details).









Download your Landlord BTL Profit & Loss Spreadsheet Template

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28 Join the Conversation...

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Fiona 6th November, 2007 @ 18:55

It looks really good ......
its abit scary when I see how someone is so organised because you just have to be .. I started one and then i got abit side tracked :/ maybe this will motivate my lazy arse , or not

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The Landlord Avatar
The Landlord 6th November, 2007 @ 19:03

Thanks, Fiona.
Although i'm not really THAT organised; i'm pretty lazy also. Putting in a new entry takes about 1min, anyone can do it. It's designed for lazy people such as myself that don't want to monitor too much, but is up to date with the basics :)

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Just saying 6th November, 2007 @ 19:05

Thats pretty cool mate. i'm going to use your spreadsheet because its simple to use and im a simple person lol. many thanks

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Phil 17th May, 2009 @ 08:18

Hi,

I would like to use your spreadsheet, however the download version has an extra column but the totals do not work.
Any chance of an update please

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The Landlord Avatar
The Landlord 17th July, 2009 @ 13:02

Hey Phil,

The file has been updated.

Cheers :)

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Pete 17th August, 2009 @ 07:57

Hi,

Just found this website as I'm doing some prep work before taking the plunge into property investment. I want to learn as much as possible before setting out.

Great spreadsheet although isn't there something missing? - the capital invested in the property and the 'opportunity cost' of having that sum tied up in the property.

For instance, you should take into account any interest that you could have earned on the deposit, shouldn't you? Or is there a reason for leaving this off?

Cheers,

Pete

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essence 10th August, 2010 @ 00:52

hiya, is there any possibility of making your more complicated spreadsheets visible so that I can have a look at it. ta

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Taj 16th May, 2011 @ 22:03

Thank you for sharing your spreadsheet. I can use it and it really helped!

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Andre Violette 9th June, 2011 @ 17:43

i think its great i need to sort out 5 years worth. I have noticed either its me or the formulas are wrong for the totals. Extra outgoing adds to incoming. Extra income does not get included i downloaded it twice same result. Let me know if im just not using it right pls

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Jeremy 30th December, 2011 @ 20:05

Hi Landlord,

I've developed my own spreadsheet, too. It's based around the principle of Double Entry (which is a bit OTT but it makes finding mistakes - and I make many! - really easy). The main functions I've got are:
+ Every transaction's got a ref. no so it's easy to find the supporting paperwork come tax assesment time;
+ The usual stuff about rent tracking payments, so you know what you have or have not had;
+ Cash Flow planning. You make some good points about making sure a landlord measures P&L, but cash is king. This helps to prevent overcommiting cash outwards, e.g. doing a renovation just before a tax bill is due and then going accidentally over-drawn or getting caught short for maintenance cash when a tenant is due to leave;
+ An analysis of Profit overall and Profit per Property;
+ Issue of receipts and invoices.

This level of analysis has done me fine over the years.

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Jeremy 30th December, 2011 @ 23:48

Forgot to say: Do you fancy downloading a non-live-data version of your current spreadsheet? Being really selfish, I'd like to see if I could crib any further good ideas from yours.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!

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Zahir 25th January, 2013 @ 00:43

You're a bad boy love your site with all the helpful info I have a simple spread sheet that I use and looking at refining it would it be ok for me to forwarded to you when it is done so you can post it on line all because I love free stuff

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Zahir 25th January, 2013 @ 18:59

Hello Jeremy

Can I get to try your version of the spread sheet it seems better than mine. It would be appreciated

Kind regards

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Roy Moore 6th February, 2013 @ 15:18

The spreadsheet looks really good any chance of a copy and it wouldn't download?

Roy

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Roy Moore 13th February, 2013 @ 12:49

Copy of spread sheet please?
Download link isn't working.
Roy

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The Landlord Avatar
The Landlord 13th February, 2013 @ 15:41

Hi Roy,

I just clicked on the link, and it downloads just fine.

The document will automatically download as soon as the link is clicked. Most browser show a download status in the left hand bottom corner of the window.

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Fran 19th August, 2013 @ 10:17

Hi

Tried to download the spreadsheet but it says the rentbook is invalid or corrupted!!

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RPJ 6th September, 2013 @ 13:32

The Extra income is set to the wron column, I think cell I8 should read =SUM(H13:H1000)

just a typo and easily fixed \ spotted but I thought I would let you know.

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Denise Slater 28th September, 2013 @ 16:39

I've just downloaded it. We only have one property, but I like to keep things right. Thanks :-)

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Lou 26th November, 2014 @ 11:34

Ive got an ipad1 but it wont download help!!

Thanks
Lou.

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Hannu 4th January, 2015 @ 16:36

Im giving this a go! I tried other xl spreads and just got confused! This seems to make sense! Thank for the upload!

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NAM 16th April, 2015 @ 08:58

No download. I filled in the details to subscribe to the newsletter, received an email to confirm the subscription but no links to download. If I click the Download button above, it just keeps forcing me to enter my email address again without actually giving me anything.

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nin 8th May, 2016 @ 18:02

thanks for this.
its very simple and handy to use for tracking all incoming and outgoings for my BTL.

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AnK 12th October, 2017 @ 10:29

New to all of this, just wondering if you put in the rental income before or after the letting Agent takes it's fees? eg. the tenants pay £500pm, Agency takes their fee and the landlord receives £450.00pm
Many thanks

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Luke 12th January, 2018 @ 20:11

Downloaded and been using this spreadsheet and its brilliant thankyou I can see to the penny what my costs are .

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Tony Wilton 9th July, 2020 @ 18:44

Hi.

Looking to BTL. I have been informed you can't offset your mortgage against your costs in terms of income tax. Is this correct? So it is only all the other running costs that you can offset against your rental income, but not the mortgage?

Thanks

Tony

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Bart 11th June, 2023 @ 11:16

Hi, am I right that you can offset the interest of the mortgage against your costs with regards to tax returns? Cheers

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The Landlord Avatar
The Landlord 11th June, 2023 @ 15:31

Hi @Bart,

I'm afraid not, UK landlords haven't been able to do that for a few years now, after Section 24 was introduced.

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