Rent Roll Template: Track Expected vs. Collected Rent

A rent roll is a one-page view of every unit you rent out: who lives there, what the rent is, when the lease runs, and how much rent has actually come in. Where a rent ledger lists every payment as it arrives, a rent roll sums those payments by unit and month so you can see at a glance which units are paid up and which are behind.

Rent roll vs. rent ledger

Rent ledger: one row per payment (date, unit, type, amount, method, the period it covers). See how to keep a rent ledger.
Rent roll: one row per unit, with rent collected per month and a comparison to what you expected.

Keeping both is easiest when the rent roll is built from the ledger, so each payment is typed only once.

Columns to include

Unit and property address
Tenant
Monthly rent and due day
Lease start and lease end
Deposit held
Rent collected for each month of the year
Total collected, expected rent and the gap between them

Record rent in the month it is for, not the month it arrived. A December payment that lands in January still belongs to December, which keeps your monthly totals and gaps accurate.

How to compare expected and collected rent

Expected: monthly rent × the number of lease months so far this year.
Collected: the rent you have recorded for those months.
Gap: collected − expected. Zero means paid up; a negative number is rent expected to date that you have not recorded as collected.

Look into a gap before you act on it: check every way the tenant might have paid and whether a payment was logged to the wrong month. If rent really is late, see how to write a late rent notice.

Example rent roll

Example only: made-up names and round numbers. Three units, rent due on the 1st, rent roll checked at the end of March.

Unit	Tenant	Rent	Jan	Feb	Mar	Collected	Expected	Gap
A	Jamie Placeholder	$1,200	$1,200	$1,200	$1,200	$3,600	$3,600	$0
B	Sam Sample	$1,100	$1,100	$1,100	$600	$2,800	$3,300	−$500
C	Alex Example	$1,000	—	$1,000	$1,000	$2,000	$2,000	$0

Unit B paid $600 of March's $1,100, so its gap is $2,800 − $3,300 = −$500. Unit C's lease started in February, so only two months are expected ($1,000 × 2 = $2,000) and there is no gap.

A simple monthly routine

Record each payment in the ledger the day it arrives, with the month it covers.
After the due date, check the rent roll's gap column for every unit.
Follow up on any gap, and note lease end dates coming up so renewals don't sneak up on you. See how to write a lease renewal offer.

Not legal or tax advice. This is general information. Rules on rent collection, late fees, deposits and record-keeping vary by state and city and change over time. Check your lease and your state and local law, or ask a qualified attorney, and ask a tax professional about your records.

Want a rent roll that fills itself in? The Small Landlord Kit ($15) includes the Landlord Rent & Expense Tracker (.xlsx, BLANK and filled SAMPLE). Its Settings tab holds up to 10 units with property, tenant, monthly rent, due day, lease start and end, deposit held, days to lease end and a lease status (Active, Renew soon within 60 days, Expired). Its Rent Roll tab pulls rent from the Rent Ledger into Jan-Dec columns per unit, then shows Total collected, Expected (lease months) and the Gap. Rent is counted in the month it is for. Also includes a Quick-Start Guide and the Move-In / Move-Out Inspection Checklist. See the Small Landlord Kit

Want everything? The Landlord Complete Bundle ($34) includes the same tracker plus 6 printable landlord forms, the Rental Deal Analyzer and the free Move-Out Deposit Deduction Checklist.