How do I track rental income and expenses for taxes?

Keep one row per property per month. Record the rent that actually came in, and put each bill in a column named for the Schedule E line it goes on. Keep the receipt for every expense. At year end, add up each column for each property and give the totals and the receipts to your tax preparer. This template is set up that way.

What are the expense lines on Schedule E?

Part I of the 2025 Schedule E lists rents received on line 3 and expenses on lines 5 through 19: advertising, auto and travel, cleaning and maintenance, commissions, insurance, legal and other professional fees, management fees, mortgage interest paid to banks, other interest, repairs, supplies, taxes, utilities, depreciation expense or depletion, and other. Ask your tax preparer which line a given cost belongs on.

Is a security deposit rental income?

IRS Publication 527 says 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 is income in the year you keep it. Leave deposits out of the rents column and track them on the tenant ledger instead.

Rental income and expense template, laid out by Schedule E line

One row per property per month. One column for rent received and one for each expense line on IRS Schedule E. Add up each column at the end of the year and you have the numbers your tax preparer asks for, property by property.

Rental income and expenses columns

The rental-income-and-expense-template.csv file has these columns, in this order.

property
month
line_3_rents_received
line_5_advertising
line_6_auto_and_travel
line_7_cleaning_and_maintenance
line_8_commissions
line_9_insurance
line_10_legal_and_professional_fees
line_11_management_fees
line_12_mortgage_interest
line_13_other_interest
line_14_repairs
line_15_supplies
line_16_taxes
line_17_utilities
line_18_depreciation
line_19_other
line_19_other_description
notes

Why the columns follow Schedule E

Most rental expense spreadsheets use whatever categories the owner thought of in year one: lawn, plumber, Home Depot, bank. Then every spring someone sorts those back into the lines on the tax form. This sheet skips that step. Each column name starts with its Schedule E line number, so line_14_repairs is line 14 and line_17_utilities is line 17. Schedule E gives each property its own column, A, B, and C. That is why this sheet has a property column on every row. Keep a separate row for each property even when one bill covers two of them, and split the amount.

What goes in each column

property is the name you use for the building. month is written as YYYY-MM so the sheet sorts in order. line_3_rents_received is the rent that actually came in that month, not what the leases call for. A security deposit you expect to return is not rent; leave it out and track it on the tenant ledger. The expense columns run from line_5_advertising to line_19_other. Enter amounts as plain numbers, no dollar signs, and leave a cell blank when you spent nothing. line_12_mortgage_interest is the interest part of the payment only, not the principal; the Form 1098 your lender sends in January shows the year's total, so check your sheet against it. line_18_depreciation stays blank all year for most landlords, because it is figured once a year, and your preparer usually handles it. line_19_other_description is the one column that is not a number. If you put anything in line_19_other, say what it was, since Schedule E asks you to list it. notes is for the detail you will want in March: which unit, which vendor, which receipt.

Repairs or an improvement

Fixing the water heater thermostat is a repair. Replacing the water heater may be an improvement, and an improvement usually is not written off in the year you pay for it. It gets depreciated instead. The sheet cannot make that call. When a bill is big, put it in notes and ask your preparer which column it belongs in before you file.

How this differs from the other templates

The rental property spreadsheet template lists what you own: buildings, units, bedrooms, square feet. The tenant ledger template tracks what one tenant owes and pays. This one is the money in and out for each property, sorted the way the tax form sorts it. Most landlords keep all three.

IRS Schedule E (Form 1040), Supplemental Income and Loss

Schedule E (Form 1040) 2025, Part I, line 3 (rents received) and lines 5 through 19 (expenses), irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040se.pdf. Part I of Schedule E has a column for each rental property. Rent received goes on line 3. The expense lines are 5 advertising, 6 auto and travel, 7 cleaning and maintenance, 8 commissions, 9 insurance, 10 legal and other professional fees, 11 management fees, 12 mortgage interest paid to banks, 13 other interest, 14 repairs, 15 supplies, 16 taxes, 17 utilities, 18 depreciation expense or depletion, and 19 other. This sheet only borrows those lines as column headings. Which line a cost belongs on, and whether you can deduct it at all, is a question for your tax preparer. Consult a licensed attorney or tax professional for advice on your specific situation.

Stop retyping the same numbers every April

On the Growth plan and up, LeaseRooster files each expense under these same Schedule E lines and downloads a Schedule E summary per property for the year.