Record costs for a property

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

You’ll need level 7 access or above to your FreeAgent account to follow the steps below.

If you have an unincorporated landlord account type and rent out a property, you can record costs related to the property by either explaining a bank transaction as a ‘Payment’ or creating an out-of-pocket expense or bill. Please note that recording the cost using more than one method will result in your cost being double or triple counted. Before entering this data, it’s a good idea to familiarise yourself with the difference between an expense, a bill and a bank payment in FreeAgent.

If you have received rental income from one of your tenants, find out how to record rental income for a property.

Explaining a bank transaction

If you’re explaining a bank transaction instead of creating an out-of-pocket expense or bill, select ‘Payment’ from the ‘Type’ drop-down menu and select the relevant cost category from the ‘Category’ drop-down menu. You can create custom categories if you need to.

Select the property that the cost relates to from the ‘Properties’ drop-down menu and select ‘Explain Transaction’ to complete the process.

If you have more than one transaction that you need to explain to the same cost category for the same property, tick the checkboxes to the left of the relevant transactions.

Next, select ‘Payment’ from the ‘Type’ drop-down menu, select the relevant cost category from the ‘Category’ drop-down menu and select the relevant property from the ‘Properties’ drop-down menu in the panel on the right-hand side.

Finally, 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.

Creating an out-of-pocket expense

If the property cost was paid for using personal funds and you’re adding an out-of-pocket expense instead of explaining a bank transaction or creating a bill, complete the relevant details for the out-of-pocket expense. Select the relevant property from the ‘Property’ drop-down menu and the relevant cost category from the ‘Category’ drop-down menu.

Once you’ve completed the relevant details, select ‘Create New Expense’ at the bottom of the screen to complete the process.

Adding a bill

If you’re adding a bill for the property cost instead of explaining a bank transaction or creating an out-of-pocket expense, complete the relevant details for the bill, including selecting the relevant property from the 'Property' drop-down menu.

In the 'Bill Content' section, select the relevant cost category from the ‘Spending Category’ drop-down menu. You can create custom categories if you need to. If you're unsure which category to select, please ask your accountant.

Once you’ve entered the relevant details, select ‘Save and Review’ to complete the process. Find out how to view a breakdown of the costs allocated to a property and its overall profitability.