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Rental properties & leases

Plan availability: rentals depend on your subscription. If you don't see the RENTALS section in the AR (Sales) panel, your plan may not include it — see Subscriptions & billing, or ask your workspace owner.

The rentals module manages rental properties and their leases end to end: the buildings and units you rent out, the lease contracts, the auto-generated rent schedule, the invoices and receipts for each installment, incoming tenant cheques, security deposits, and property expenses. Everything flows through normal SolaBooks documents, so rent lands in your books like any other income.

The AR (Sales) panel's RENTALS section has six entries: Properties & Leases, Lease Contracts, Rent Cheques, Rental Reports, Property Expenses, and Property Expense Report.

When to use it

  • You rent out apartments, shops, offices, warehouses, or whole buildings and want the rent billed and collected through your accounting.
  • You hold post-dated tenant cheques and need to track them from received to cleared (or bounced).
  • You need a Rent Roll — who owes what, which installments are overdue, which invoices are missing.
  • You track building expenses per property or per unit.

If you only invoice a tenant once in a while, a plain invoice may be enough. Use rentals when there is a contract with a recurring schedule.

Before you start

  • Customers must exist for your tenants (you can also quick-create one from inside the lease form).
  • The Properties & Leases landing page shows a Start rental setup card — "Complete these steps to run rentals end to end." Follow the numbered steps the first time.
  • Rental accounting must be configured before invoices can be generated — if you see Configure accounting first, complete that step (or ask your workspace administrator).

Step by step

1. Register a property

  1. Open Properties & Leases and click New Property.
  2. Fill in the property details: Name (required), Code, Type (Building, Villa, Land, Other), an optional Linked Fixed Asset (connecting the property to your fixed asset register), Address, and Notes.
  3. Click Save. You land on the property page.
  4. Add units from the Add Unit card: unit name, code, floor, type (Apartment, Shop, Office, Warehouse, Other), and status (Vacant, Occupied, Inactive).

The property page's Units table then tracks each unit's current tenant, lease end date, and paid-until date.

2. Create a lease

  1. Click New Lease (from Properties & Leases or Lease Contracts).
  2. The form is deliberately simple — "Just the basics. Everything advanced is available on the lease page after saving."
  3. Fill in: Property, Unit, Tenant / Customer (with an inline Add new customer quick-create), optional Contract number, Start date, End date, Rent amount, Frequency (Monthly, Quarterly, Semi annual, Annual), Payment method (Cash, Bank transfer, Cheque, Mixed, Other), optional Deposit amount and deposit status, and Notes.
  4. If the payment method is Cheque, a 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.
  5. Click Create Lease & Generate Schedule. SolaBooks generates the full rent schedule automatically and takes you to the lease page.

A new lease is saved as a draft: "Lease draft created. Submit it for independent approval before activation." Use the lease page's next-action buttons — Submit for approval, then Approve lease (an allowed approver), then Activate lease.

3. Bill the rent

Rent installments become real SolaBooks documents — invoices and receipts — but generation is deliberately manual, so you stay in control:

  • On the lease page's Invoices & Collections tab (or the Rent Roll), click Generate invoice next to an installment. Tick Post to post it to the ledger straight away.
  • Use Generate due invoices (on the Properties & Leases landing page) or Generate selected (on the Rent Roll) to batch-generate everything that's due.
  • When money arrives, click Record receipt on the installment: payment date, amount, and — for cheque leases — a link to the specific cheque. Fully paid rows show Settled.

The generated documents are normal invoices and payments — they appear in your AR lists and reports like everything else.

4. Track rent cheques

Open Rent Cheques. This page tracks incoming tenant cheques only — "Company cheque books are separate" (those are for your outgoing payments; see Cheques).

  • Add a cheque with Add Cheque: lease, optional installment, cheque number, bank, drawer, cheque date, maturity/due date, amount, and evidence (a photo or scan).
  • Each cheque moves through statuses such as Scheduled, Pending, Received, Held, Deposited, Cleared, Returned, Bounced, Replaced, Cancelled.
  • Row actions follow the status: Approve → Receive (with a received date) → Clear (after deposit, with a clearing date). A problem cheque gets Return (with a return date and reason) and can then be Replaced with a new cheque.
  • Depositing happens through Deposit batches — only received, un-deposited cheques are eligible for a deposit batch.
  • Filter the list by due date (Due this week, Due this month, Overdue) and by status.

On a cheque lease's page, Generate cheque schedule creates the expected cheque list from the rent schedule in one step.

5. Run the Rent Roll and other rental reports

Open Rental Reports. Four reports are available: Rent Roll, Expiring Leases, Cheques Due, and Deposits.

The Rent Roll is the workhorse — every installment with its tenant, property, unit, due date, invoice status, rent amount, paid and outstanding amounts, payment method, cheque status, and overdue flag. Filter chips narrow it fast: All, Due this week, Overdue, Missing invoice, Partially paid, Cheques maturing, Deposit missing, Ending soon. Bulk actions (Generate selected, Remind selected) let you act without leaving the report, and Export Rent Roll downloads it as CSV.

6. Record property expenses

Open Property Expenses and click New Property Expense:

  1. Pick the Property and the Scope — Whole property, Building-wide, Single unit, Multiple units, or Lease-specific.
  2. Enter the Expense date, Amount, expense account, Paid by (Manager / Owner / Tenant / Other), Vendor / payee, and a voucher reference.
  3. Optionally mark it Owner-chargeable or Tenant-recoverable, and allocate it across units or owners (equal by unit, by ownership %, manual % or amounts).
  4. Click Save Property Expense.

The Property Expense Report then shows expenses, refunds, and recoveries per property and unit for a period, with property and category totals, and exports to Excel, PDF, or print.

7. Manage the lease over time

The lease page has tabs for everything after day one — Overview, Rent Schedule, Invoices & Collections, Rent Cheques, Security Deposit, Lifecycle & Audit, Move-In / Move-Out, Automation, and Documents & Notes. Key lifecycle actions:

  • Renewal: Create linked renewal drafts a follow-on contract with new dates and rent (and can carry the existing deposit link). "Renewal draft created. Review the dates and rent, then activate it when ready."
  • Amendment: apply an effective-dated rent change — only eligible future schedule rows are updated; history is untouched.
  • Early termination: Terminate lease with an effective date and reason — only eligible future schedule rows are cancelled.
  • Natural expiry: Record natural expiry when the lease simply runs out.
  • Security deposit: Post deposit liability when the deposit is received, and Settle security deposit at the end of the lease.
  • Move-In / Move-Out: record handover dates, condition notes, and evidence files.

Every lifecycle event is recorded in the Lifecycle & Audit tab with its status transition, effective date, and reason.

Statuses explained

  • Lease: Draft → Pending approval → Active; near its end date it shows Expiring, then Expired. Other outcomes: Renewed (replaced by a linked renewal), Terminated (ended early), Cancelled (never activated), Completed.
  • Rent installments: unpaid, Overdue (past due), Paid, or Cancelled (e.g. after termination).
  • Rent cheques: Scheduled / Pending → Received → Deposited → Cleared (money in the bank). Problems: Returned or Bounced, then optionally Replaced.
  • Units: Vacant, Occupied, Inactive.

Example

Al Noor Trading owns a small building in Amman with three shops. Sara registers the property ("Al Noor Building", type Building) and adds units Shop 1–3. She signs a one-year lease with Modern Furniture LLC for Shop 1 at JOD 500/month, payment method Cheque, deposit JOD 500. She creates the lease with Create Lease & Generate Schedule — twelve monthly installments appear instantly — then submits, approves, and activates it, and enters the 12 post-dated cheques the tenant handed over.

Each month she opens the Rent Roll, filters Due this month, clicks Generate selected, and posts the invoices. As each cheque matures she marks it Received, adds it to a deposit batch, and Clears it once the bank confirms. In month 7 a cheque bounces: she marks it Returned with the reason, calls the tenant, and records the Replaced cheque. At year end she uses Create linked renewal with the new rent and activates the renewal.

Common problems

  • "I can't generate an invoice — the button says Configure accounting first." Rental accounting setup isn't complete. Open the lease's Accounting settings (or ask your workspace administrator).
  • "The lease won't activate." Leases go Draft → Pending approval → Active. Submit it for approval first; only an allowed user can approve. If no one can, ask your workspace administrator.
  • "No invoices are appearing automatically." By design — "Invoices are generated manually from this lease. No automatic recurring invoice is enabled." Use Generate invoice, Generate due invoices, or the Rent Roll's Generate selected.
  • "I need to change the rent mid-lease." Don't edit history — use the effective-dated amendment on the Lifecycle & Audit tab. Only future schedule rows change.
  • "A cheque isn't eligible for a deposit batch." Only cheques marked Received and not yet deposited can be batched. Receive it first.
  • "I don't see RENTALS in my menu." Your plan doesn't include rentals — see Subscriptions & billing, or ask your workspace owner.

What happens in accounting

Rentals don't invent new accounting — they drive standard documents:

  • Generating a rent installment invoice posts normal AR: debit the customer's receivable, credit rental income (plus VAT where applicable).
  • Recording a receipt posts a normal customer payment against that invoice.
  • Posting the security deposit records a liability (money you hold but don't own); settling the deposit releases it.
  • Property expenses post like normal expenses, tagged to the property and unit for the Property Expense Report.

Related

  • Invoices and Payments — the documents rent generates.
  • Cheques — company cheque books for your outgoing payments (separate from rent cheques).
  • Fixed assets — link a property to the asset register ("Linked Rental Properties").
  • Customers — your tenants.
  • Expenses — general (non-property) spending.
  • Reports — everything rental invoices and payments feed into.
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