Rental property bookkeeping: Schedule E, one column per property
A landlord's books are the same bank lines as anyone's, with one extra question on every line: which property was it for? AI Bookkeeper files the lines (rules, payee memory and a classifier learn from your corrections), lets you tag each to a property, and regroups the result onto the lines of Schedule E Part I so you or your preparer can copy it across.
Worked example: two properties, one month
Synthetic data: $2,700.00 of rent from two tenants, a plumber, a landlord insurance premium, mortgage interest and lawn care. The plumber is tagged to 12 Oak St by the word "oak", the mortgage to 9 Elm St by "elm"; the insurance and lawn care are left untagged to show the warning.
| Schedule E line | 12 Oak St | 9 Elm St | Unassigned |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Rents received | $1,500.00 | $1,200.00 | – |
| 9 Insurance | – | – | $100.00 |
| 12 Mortgage interest paid to banks | – | $400.00 | – |
| 14 Repairs | $300.00 | – | – |
| 7 Cleaning and maintenance | – | – | $50.00 |
| 21 Income or (loss) | $1,200.00 | $800.00 | −$150.00 |
The worksheet warns that $150.00 of expense is not tagged to a property, and that no depreciation is booked.
How to do it
- Import each bank and card statement (CSV, OFX, QIF, PDF) in AI Bookkeeper and file the lines.
rental accountsadds rental income, management fees, mortgage interest, property taxes, maintenance and a deposits-held liability to the chart. - Add properties:
rental add oak 12 Oak St. - Tag lines:
rental tag oak --match "oak st", or by account (--account 6210) or id. - Run
schedulee(add--csvfor a spreadsheet). The preparer pack (taxpack YEAR) includesschedule_e.csvwhen properties exist. - Keep deposits out of rent. A security deposit you hold goes to the liability account until you keep it.
Line numbers are from the form's layout as the author knows it, not checked against this year's instructions. Passive-loss limits, personal-use days, vacation-home rules and the depreciation schedule are not modelled.
Questions
Which Schedule E line does each landlord expense go on?
The worksheet maps insurance to line 9, mortgage interest to bank to line 12, repairs to line 14, supplies to 15, taxes (including property taxes) to 16, utilities to 17, depreciation to 18, and anything it does not know to line 19 with its own row. Property management fees go to line 11 and cleaning and maintenance to line 7. Check each line against the current form instructions.
How do I keep several rental properties separate?
Add each property, then tag its bank lines by a word in the description, by the account they were filed to, or by id. Each property gets its own column of lines 3 to 21. Untagged amounts are reported as unassigned and warned about; with only one property everything untagged belongs to it.
Is a tenant's security deposit rental income?
Generally not until you keep it. The tool adds a liability account for deposits held so they stay out of rent; ask your preparer how to treat a forfeited deposit.
Does it compute depreciation?
No schedule. It carries whatever is booked to the depreciation account onto line 18 and warns when none is booked, because a residential rental building is normally depreciated over 27.5 years with land excluded. That is for you or your preparer.
Is it free?
Yes. It is open source (MIT), runs in your browser or the command line, and nothing is uploaded.
Open AI Bookkeeper and import your rental accounts.