Record rental income for a property

This article explains how to record rental income for a property that you’ve added to an unincorporated landlord account in FreeAgent.

Please note:

  • If you have an unincorporated landlord account type and rent out a property, you can record the rental income by either explaining a bank transaction as ‘Rental Income’ or creating an invoice. Be aware that doing both will result in your income being double-counted.
     
  • You’ll need level 7 access or above to your FreeAgent account to follow the steps below.

If you have refunded rental income to one of your tenants, find out how to record a rental refund.

Explaining a bank transaction

If you’re explaining a bank transaction to record rental income instead of creating an invoice, you'll need to do as follows.

Navigate to the 'Banking' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Bank Accounts' from the drop-down menu.

Bank Accounts highlighted within the bank accounts drop-down menu

Choose the relevant bank account from the list and select the transaction that relates to the rental income.

Banking area with transaction highlighted

Select ‘Rental Income’ from the ‘Type’ drop-down menu and select the property that the rental income relates to from the ‘Properties’ drop-down menu.

Type and Properties drop-down menus highlighted with relevant options chosen

Select ‘Explain transaction’ to complete the process.

Explaining multiple transactions

If you have more than one transaction that you need to explain as rental income for the same property, tick the checkboxes to the left of the relevant transactions and select ‘Rental Income’ from the ‘Type’ drop-down menu in the panel on the right-hand side.

Next, select the relevant property from the ‘Properties’ drop-down menu and select ‘Explain [X] transactions’ to explain all the selected transactions in the same way. Remember to include an appropriate description for the selected transactions. If you leave the ‘description’ field blank, the transactions will automatically be given the original descriptions from the bank feed import or bank statement upload.

Multiple transactions selected and being explained as rental income for a property

Creating an invoice

If you’re creating an invoice to record rental income instead of explaining a bank transaction, you’ll need to add the tenant as a contact in FreeAgent before creating the invoice.

Add the tenant as a contact

Navigate to the 'Contacts' tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Add New Contact’.

Contacts section with add new contact button highlighted

Follow the steps for adding a new contact in FreeAgent.

Create the invoice

Next, navigate to the relevant property and select 'Invoice' from the 'Add new' drop-down menu.

Property screen with invoice highlighted within the add new drop-down menu

Alternatively, navigate to the ‘Work’ tab at the top of the screen, select ‘Invoicing’ from the drop-down menu and select 'Add New Invoice'.

'Add New Invoice' button highlighted in Invoices page.

Select which tenant the invoice is for using the ‘Contact’ drop-down menu and select which property the rental income relates to from the ‘Property’ drop-down menu.

Contact and Property drop-down menus highlighted on new invoice form

Once you’ve completed the relevant details for the invoice, select ‘Create New Invoice’ to complete the process. Find out more about how to create an invoice.

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