Tracking your rental property expenses accurately is essential if you want to get maximum tax deductions from your rental property business. Even so, diligently storing detailed records of tax-deductible expenses isn’t always straightforward, and filling out your tax return at the end of the year to maximise benefits can be frustrating. This is especially true if you don’t have an expense tracker like Tenantcube to store all your important documents and to keep up-to-date records of your income and expenses in real-time. By staying organised throughout the entire tax year, you will save time and money — and also keep your sanity.

Four Reasons to Maintain Accurate Rental Expense Records

1. With detailed, well-organised accounts stored in one place, you can file your taxes easier, faster and more accurately.
2. Keeping accurate accounts means you won’t miss out on any deductions and won’t end up overpaying your taxes.
3. Your financial data will be more complete and accessible, allowing you to plan for the future, grow your business and reach your financial goals.
4. The CRA and IRS audits thousands of companies each year. If they have any questions about your tax return you will need proof to back up your claim. If you can’t come up with the proof your claim will not be honoured, and you may need to pay additional taxes and penalties.

What Records Should You Keep Track Of?
Everything! To be on the safer side, you should have accessible records of everything.

Permanent Records
Landlords don’t just need to keep track of expense receipts and rental income: there are also several documents you need to file and keep indefinitely. A few examples of these documents are:

• Your current and past tenant leases.
• Records of all communications between yourself and your tenants.
• Legal documents such as fines, inspection reports, and LTB appearances.
• Other relevant legal records
• Your insurance policies.
• Loan documents such as mortgages.
• Past years’ taxes.
• Property title/deed.

You can store all these documents as secure digital records in the Tenantcube app. This will allow you to do away with the endless filing cabinets and shoeboxes of receipts.

Deductible Rental Property Expenses Landlords Need To Track

Every landlord needs a good system to track their rental expenses. Some examples of deductible expenses that you need to keep detailed records of include but are not limited to:

• Advertising costs for your property.
• Professional fees, including accountancy fees, Tenantcube costs, and legal fees such as legal documents or a consultation with paralegal.
• Office expenses such as a phone for business use or office supplies.
• Repairs and property maintenance, such as repainting, plumbing repairs, HVAC repairs etc.
• Travel expenses. For example, gas for journeys to and from your investment property for maintenance or routine inspections.
• Utilities. If you are paying the utility bills for your properties, these are a business expense. If tenants pay for utilities, you can mark these expenses as payable by the tenant in the Tenantcube app, and send a payment request as well.
• Employee wages, if any.
• Property depreciation.

In addition to tracking these key rental expenses with a modern app like Tenantcube, it’s wise to keep detailed records of all your other income.

What To Look For In An Expense Tracker

As part of our mission to improve the lives of landlords and tenants, we are perfecting the expense tracking feature in Tenantcube. Our landlord app makes it easier than ever to not only store relevant documents and record your rental income but also to organise all your deductibles. You can easily connect your bank account, set recurring expenses, and schedule rent reminder emails.
​​​​​​​Do away with your Excel spreadsheets and boxes of receipts. Let Tenantcube look after all your rental tracking needs.

Store receipts smartly
Our expense tracking feature allows you to capture and upload instant pictures of receipts or any other relevant documents you want to keep. This way, you can store documents forever, in a secure and easily accessible manner.

Set up Online Rent Payments
​​​​​Connect your bank account to Tenantcube so that you receive automatic rent payments deposited in your account. Tenantcube will send your tenants timely reminders and also give them the option of automatically paying rent from their bank accounts on a scheduled date every month.

Payable By Tenants
Not all property expenses are the landlord’s responsibility; you need to pass some expenses onto the tenant. For example, any damage that goes beyond normal wear and tear would be a tenant’s responsibility. For such expenses, you can easily request payment from the tenant from the app itself.

Mobile First
A key benefit of Tenantcube over other legacy systems on the market is that users can access their account on any device. This means you can check and update your accounts anywhere at any time. For instance, you can snap a picture of a receipt while you’re in the hardware store parking lot and your accounting will be complete before you’ve even put your seatbelt on.

Thus, having a quality expense tracker will save you time and enable you to maximise your landlord expense deductions. Start tracking your rental property expenses with Tenantcube today.