Is a rent roll the same as a tenant ledger?

No. A rent roll shows every unit on one date: the tenant, the rent, the deposit held, the lease dates, and whether this month is paid. A tenant ledger is the running history of one tenancy, with every charge, every payment, and the balance after each. Lenders and buyers ask for the rent roll. The ledger is what you pull out when a tenant disputes a balance.

What columns does a rent roll need?

At a minimum: property, unit, tenant, lease start and end dates, monthly rent, and the deposit you hold. Most landlords add this month's payment status, the last payment date, and a notes column. This template has all ten, and it keeps a row for every vacant unit too.

Free rent roll template

One row per unit: who lives there, what they pay, what deposit you hold, when the lease ends, and whether this month is paid. Download the CSV, open it in Excel or Google Sheets, and type over the sample rows.

Rent roll columns

The rent-roll-template.csv file has these columns, in this order.

property
unit
tenant
lease_start
lease_end
monthly_rent
deposit_held
rent_status
last_payment_date
notes

What each column is for

property and unit name the door. Use the same unit labels your leases use, so B on the rent roll is B on the lease. tenant is the name on the lease; if two people signed, put both names in the one cell. lease_start and lease_end are dates written as YYYY-MM-DD, which keeps the sheet sorting correctly. Leave lease_end blank for a month-to-month tenancy and say so in notes. monthly_rent is the rent the lease calls for, not what came in. deposit_held is the security deposit you are holding for that tenancy. It is kept apart from rent because it is not your money until the lease ends. rent_status is one word for this month: paid, partial, late, or vacant. last_payment_date shows at a glance who has gone quiet. notes is for the one fact you would otherwise forget, like a renewal offer that is out.

Who asks for a rent roll

A lender, when you refinance or buy the next building. A buyer, before they make an offer on yours, and their agent will check it line by line against the leases. Your tax preparer, at year end, to square rent received against bank deposits. They all want the same thing: every unit, the rent, the deposit, and the dates, with nothing missing.

The mistake that trips people up

Leaving vacant units off. A rent roll that lists only occupied units makes a fourplex look like a triplex, and a lender who notices will wonder what else is missing. Keep the row, set rent_status to vacant, and put the asking rent in monthly_rent. The other one is treating the rent roll as a payment history. It is a snapshot of every unit on one day. The running record of one tenant's charges and payments is a tenant ledger, and there is a free template for that too, linked at the bottom of this page.

Moving it into LeaseRooster

This file is written for people to read, so it will not import as is. The LeaseRooster leases importer expects these columns: property_name, unit_label, tenant_email, tenant_name, start_date, end_date, rent, deposit, status. Import your properties and units first, since each lease points at a unit. The rental property spreadsheet template has both of those files ready to fill in.

IRS Publication 527, Residential Rental Property

Pub. 527 (2025), chapter 1, Rental Income: "Advance rent" and "Security deposits". The IRS treats the two money columns on a rent roll differently. Advance rent is income in the year you receive it, no matter what period it covers. A security deposit you plan to return is not income when you receive it. If you keep part of it because the tenant did not live up to the lease, that part becomes income in the year you keep it. That is why the deposit gets its own column. Consult a licensed attorney or tax professional for advice on your specific situation.

Let the leases keep the rent roll

Import your properties, units, tenants, and leases from a spreadsheet, and LeaseRooster shows occupancy and rent across every property from the leases themselves.