Import and reconcile a rental statement
This article explains how to import rental statements into FreeAgent for relevant categories to be suggested for the income and fees transactions. It also explains how to undo an import.
Banking is one of the most important features in FreeAgent. The software prepares your accounts based on the explanations given for the money paid into and out of your bank and transaction accounts.
You can follow the steps below to import your rental statements and let FreeAgent capture your rental statement transactions and automatically assign them to your properties and accounting categories for you. FreeAgent will automatically create a rental statement bank account specifically for your rental statement transactions after your first import. This is different from regular bank accounts in FreeAgent as it’s solely used to record the details of income and fees from your agency statements.
Automating the categorisation and reconciliation process for landlords removes the manual workflow that leads to errors, ensuring your property accounts are always accurate and up to date.
Please note:
- FreeAgent's rental statement reconciliation functionality is currently in Beta testing. Therefore, it’s only available for users that have Beta access.
- You’ll need level 6 access or above to your FreeAgent account in order to upload a rental statement. Users with level 4 and 5 access can upload statements to the Files area for a user with a higher permission level to access.
- This functionality is only available within an unincorporated landlord account type once you have added at least one property.
- If you have income and expenditure that doesn’t come via your agency, you should record these using invoices or bills, or by explaining your bank transactions directly, instead of following the steps below.
1. Navigate to Banking
Navigate to the 'Banking' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Bank Accounts' from the drop-down menu.
Select the ‘Upload a letting agent rental statement’ link below the list of bank accounts.
2. Import the rental statement
You can import a rental statement by either uploading a new file from your device or by selecting one from the saved Files area within FreeAgent.
You can also choose to save the file in the General Files area after importing it or delete the file after it’s been imported. Adding the statement to the Files area will count towards the 1GB allowance.
Once you’ve selected the relevant file and how you want it to be dealt with after it has been imported, select ‘Import rental statement’.
FreeAgent will then import the rental statement and extract data from it.
3. Review the rental statement
Next, review all the details that FreeAgent has extracted from the rental statement.
Transactions related to property income are listed as ‘Money in’ line items and transactions related to property costs are listed as ‘Money out’ line items.
Transactions are also grouped by property. If FreeAgent is unable to match transactions to a property, they’ll be listed under ‘No property set’.
The payments to and from letting agents and landlords are grouped in a separate ‘Payments’ section.
If you need to, you can add additional line items to the upload. You can also edit or delete existing line items on the upload.
If you’re happy with the line items, you can skip to importing the rental statement.
4. Adjust the line items
Edit a line item
To edit an existing line item on the upload, select the ‘Edit’ button next to the relevant line item.
Make all the changes you need and once you’re happy, select ‘Save changes’.
Delete a line item
To delete an existing line item on the upload, select the red cross (’X’) button next to the relevant line item.
Select ‘Yes, delete this line item’ to complete the process.
Add a line item
To add a line item, select ‘Add line item’.
Select the type of transaction you want to add, choose the property to allocate it to (if you’re adding an ‘Income’ or ‘Expense’ transaction) and enter a description.
Choose a date, enter the value and select ‘Add item’.
5. Import the rental statement
Once you’re happy with the rental statement, select ‘Import statement’.
Please note that you won’t be able to edit the dates or values of the transactions once the statement has been imported. To make changes, you’ll have to undo the rental statement upload and import it again.
6. Approve the explanations
Finally, once the statement has been imported and FreeAgent’s Guess feature has assigned the transactions to accounting categories, you can approve the transactions.
Payments transferred from the rental statement account to your main bank account can be explained as transfers between bank accounts. If you haven’t added your main bank account to FreeAgent, you can explain the payments as ‘Money Paid to User’ and 'Drawings'.
When the transaction imports into the main bank account via a bank feed or statement upload, you can match it to the transaction created by FreeAgent.
Rental statement bank account
After you have imported your first rental statement, FreeAgent will automatically create a bank account for your rental statement transactions. Please note that the ‘Rental statement transactions’ bank account only includes transactions uploaded from your rental statements.
If you have more than one property and use several agencies, you can upload all statements to the single rental statement account.
To upload rental statements going forward, navigate to the new bank account.
Select ‘Upload statement’ in the top-right and follow the steps above.
Undo an import
If you accidentally import the wrong rental statement, you don't have to delete all the transactions individually. You can quickly remove all the transactions from the last import by selecting the ‘More’ button and choosing ‘Undo last upload’.
Select the 'Delete these transactions' button.
You can repeat this process if you've imported more than one incorrect statement. FreeAgent will undo the imports in reverse order, taking out the statement you imported most recently first, and then going backwards from there.