Rental properties & leases

Rentals manage the properties and units you rent out, the lease contracts, the rent schedule, and the rent invoices, receipts, tenant cheques, security deposits and property expenses that come out of them. Every financial step creates a normal SolaCount document (invoice, payment, journal), so rent shows up in your receivables and reports like any other income.

Use rentals when you have a contract with a repeating rent schedule. For a one-off charge to a tenant, a plain invoice is enough.

Plan availability: rentals need the Rental Properties & Leases plan feature. If you don't see the RENTALS section in the AR (Sales) panel, your plan doesn't include it — the workspace owner can check Settings → Plan & Features.

Where to find it

In the AR (Sales) panel, section RENTALS:

The property list is at /properties-leases/properties. The Accounts → Fixed Assets panel also has Linked Rental Properties, which lists the properties linked to a fixed asset.

Before you start

The dashboard's Start rental setup card ("Complete these steps to run rentals end to end.") lists the steps in order:

1. Add a property
2. Add a unit
3. Create a lease
4. Generate a payment schedule
5. Configure rental accounting settings
6. Generate your first invoice

Tenants are ordinary customers. You can create one from inside the lease form.

Configure rental accounting

Until this is done, invoice buttons show Configure accounting first and batch generation fails with "Configure rental accounting settings before generating due invoices."

1. Open Accounting settings (/properties-leases/accounting-settings, page Rental Accounting Settings).
2. Pick the accounts and click Save settings ("Rental accounting settings saved.").

Changes apply only to future receipts.

Add a property and units

1. Go to Properties & Leases and click New Property (page New Rental Property).
2. Fill in Property name (required), Code, type (building, villa, land, other), Address, Notes, and optionally a Linked fixed asset (connects the property to your fixed asset register).
3. Save. You see "Rental property created." and land on the property page.
4. In the Add Unit card, enter the Unit name (required), Code, Floor, unit type (apartment, shop, office, warehouse, other) and status (vacant, occupied, inactive — required), then save ("Rental unit saved.").

The property page's units table shows each unit's current tenant, lease end date and paid-until date. A unit's status switches to occupied/vacant automatically as leases start and end.

Create a lease

1. Click New Lease (on Properties & Leases or Lease Contracts). The form says "Just the basics. Everything advanced is available on the lease page after saving."
2. Fill in:

3. For a Cheque lease, the Cheque setup card appears: choose Add cheques now ("Enter the tenant cheques you already hold.": cheque number, bank, cheque date, maturity/due date, amount) or Add cheques later. For Mixed, set the method per installment on the lease page after saving.
4. Click Create Lease & Generate Schedule.

You see "Lease draft created. Submit it for independent approval before activation." and land on the lease page with the rent schedule already generated.

How schedule dates are calculated (month-end clamping)

Each installment covers one period (1, 3, 6 or 12 months). Period start dates are always counted from the lease start date, and when the target month is shorter, the date is clamped to that month's last day — it does not roll into the next month, and it does not "drift" to an earlier day for the rest of the lease.

Example — monthly lease starting 31 January 2026:

February's installment is due on the 28th, but March goes back to the 31st. The last period ends on the lease end date. The due date is the period start plus the lease's grace days (0 by default). A schedule has at most 120 installments.

Approve and activate the lease

Use the buttons on the lease page:

1. Submit for approval — "Lease submitted for approval." Status: Pending approval.
2. Approve lease — by a different user with lease-approval rights: "Lease approved." The preparer cannot approve their own lease: "The lease preparer cannot approve their own lease."
3. Activate lease — "Lease activated." Activating an unapproved lease gives "Approve the lease before activation."

A draft lease that was never activated and has no financial activity can be cancelled ("Unactivated lease cancelled."); otherwise "A lease with financial activity cannot be cancelled."

Invoice rent from the schedule

Rent invoices are never created automatically. The lease page says: "Invoices are generated manually from this lease. No automatic recurring invoice is enabled."

One installment: on the lease page's Invoices & Collections tab (or the Rent Schedule tab), click Generate invoice next to the installment. Tick Post to post the invoice to the ledger at once; otherwise it is created as a draft invoice. You see "Rental invoice INV-… generated."

Everything due: on Properties & Leases, click Generate due invoices. This creates invoices for every installment of an active lease that has no invoice yet and is due within the next 7 days (or by the date you choose), including overdue and part-paid ones. You see "N due rental invoice(s) generated" with a skipped count if some could not be invoiced.

Selected rows: on the Rent Roll, tick rows and click Generate selected.

What the invoice contains:

• Customer = the tenant; invoice date and due date = the installment's due date.
• One line, quantity 1, unit "lease", price = installment amount, revenue account = rental income. The description reads like "Rent / Marina Heights / Apt 1204 / Lease L-2026-014 / 2026-01-31 to 2026-02-27".
• The installment links to the invoice; its reference becomes the invoice number.

The line is created without a tax code. If the rent is subject to VAT (for example commercial property in the UAE), generate it without Post, check the tax on the draft invoice in Invoices, then post it.

Invoice generation errors:

• "This rental installment already has a linked invoice."
• "Cancelled rental installments cannot be invoiced."
• "Rental installment amount must be greater than zero."
• "Rental installment must have a lease and customer before invoicing."
• "Rental income account is not configured."

Record rent received

1. Click Record receipt on the installment (page Record Rental Receipt: "Confirm the amount, date, and receiving account. Rental context is already filled.").
2. Check the payment date, amount and Bank / cash account, and (for cheque leases) the linked cheque.
3. Save. You see "Rental receipt PAY-… posted."

The receipt is a normal customer payment allocated to the installment's invoice. The invoice must exist and be posted first ("Generate an invoice before recording rent collection." / "Post the linked invoice before recording rent collection."). The amount must be more than zero and cannot exceed the invoice balance.

Installment statuses: pending → partially paid → paid; unpaid installments past due become overdue; cancelled after termination or amendment.

Rent cheques

Rent Cheques lists incoming tenant cheques only: "Incoming tenant cheques for Cheque or Mixed leases. Company cheque books are separate." (for your own cheques see Cheques).

• Add cheque with lease, installment (optional), cheque number, bank, drawer, cheque date, maturity/due date, amount and evidence. On a cheque lease, Generate cheque schedule creates one cheque row per installment ("N cheque schedule row(s) generated.").
• Statuses: Scheduled, Pending, Received, Held, Deposited, Cleared, Returned, Bounced, Replaced, Cancelled. Row actions follow the status: approve → receive → clear; a problem cheque is Returned with a reason and can then be replaced (Create replacement).
• Deposit batches (/properties-leases/cheque-batches, Cheque Deposit Batches): "Controlled one-currency deposits into bank". "Only received, un-deposited cheques are eligible". A batch is submitted, approved and posted, and can be reversed.
• Filter by Due this week, Due this month, overdue, and status.

Security deposit

On the lease's Security Deposit tab:

• Mark deposit received, and Post deposit liability to post it: Dr cash/bank clearing, Cr security deposit liability ("Security deposit posted to liability in journal entry JE-…."). This needs the liability account in the accounting settings.
• At the end of the lease, Settle security deposit opens Settle Security Deposit, a settlement document that goes through submit → approve → post (and can be reversed).

Change, renew or end a lease

On the Lifecycle & Audit tab ("Approved historical terms and posted schedule rows are immutable."):

The Move-In / Move-Out tab records handovers (Complete move-in, Complete move-out) with condition and meter notes. Move-in needs an active lease; move-out needs a terminated or expired lease.

Lease statuses: Draft → Pending approval → (approved) Draft → Active → Expiring → Expired, plus Renewed, Terminated, Cancelled and Completed.

The other lease tabs are Overview, Rent Schedule, Rent Cheques, Automation (reminder and overdue settings) and Documents & Notes.

Rental reports

Rental Reports opens the Rent Roll ("Actionable Rent Roll — Filter rental work and run safe batch actions without leaving the report."). Each row is an installment with tenant, property, unit, due date, invoice number/status, rent, paid and outstanding amounts, payment method, cheque status and overdue status. Filter chips include Due this week and overdue; bulk actions are Generate selected, Remind selected and Review selected; Export Rent Roll downloads the rows as a CSV file and keeps the chip you selected, so the file matches the screen. The same page has tabs for Rent Roll, Expiring Leases, Cheques Due and Deposits. Negative amounts (for example an overdue credit) are shown as -99.20 in Arabic as well as in English, instead of flipping the sign to the right of the number.

The report pages open even when the organization has not yet applied any filter; an empty filter set no longer causes an error.

Property expenses

1. Open Property Expenses → New Property Expense ("Attribute an expense to a property/unit; optionally allocate across units or owners.").
2. Enter the property (required), scope (whole property, single unit, lease, etc.), expense date and amount (both required), expense account, tax, Vendor / payee, Voucher / reference, Paid by, and optionally Owner-chargeable / Tenant-recoverable and an Allocation (optional) across units.
3. Click Save Property Expense.

An expense can later be reversed or offset, and refunds/recoveries recorded (Record refund / recovery). The Property Expense Report (Detailed Property Expense Report) shows expenses, refunds and recoveries per property and unit for a period with property and category totals ("Property/unit expenses with allocations, refunds and recoveries."). Its filters are the dates, property, owner, settlement, expense kind, document status, payment status, Paid by and Voucher / reference, all on one row. Print, PDF and Excel at the top export the report with the same filters.

Worked example (AED)

Al Noor Trading LLC owns "Marina Heights" (building) and leases residential unit Apt 1204 to Khalid Hassan from 31 January 2026 to 30 January 2027, rent AED 7,500 monthly, payment method Cheque, deposit AED 7,500. Residential rent is exempt from UAE VAT, so no tax applies.

1. Create the lease → 12 installments (due 31 Jan, 28 Feb, 31 Mar, 30 Apr, …). Submit, have a colleague approve, activate.
2. Enter the 12 post-dated cheques with Generate cheque schedule.
3. Deposit received and posted:

4. Generate invoice for the 28 Feb installment with Post ticked:

5. When the February cheque is received, Record receipt (cheque lease → cheque clearing account if configured):

The cheque is then deposited through a deposit batch into the bank.

Permissions

All actions use the shared confirmation dialogs and outcome notices. If an outcome is uncertain, reopen the lease and check the installment before trying again — don't generate or record twice.

Tips and common problems

• Nothing invoices automatically. Use Generate invoice, Generate due invoices or Generate selected each period.
• "The unit has an overlapping active lease." End or terminate the old lease first, or pick another unit.
• "Lease cannot transition from … to …" You skipped a step; follow Submit → Approve → Activate.
• Leases starting on the 29th–31st are due on the last day of shorter months and return to the original day afterwards — this is expected.
• Owner settlements for properties managed on behalf of owners are not yet available in the rentals menus.

Related

• Invoices and Payments — the documents rent creates.
• Customers — tenants.
• Cheques — your company's outgoing cheque books.
• Fixed assets — linking a property to the asset register.
• Expenses — general expenses.
• Taxes & VAT — VAT on commercial rent.
• Reports — receivables and income reports.