Landlord Accounting Spreadsheet Template: Free Column Structure and MTD-Ready Guide for UK Landlords

Most landlord spreadsheet guides describe a template and then leave you to build it yourself. This one gives you the actual structure. Below are the column layouts for the four worksheets every UK landlord needs, written so you can copy them straight into Excel or Google Sheets, with each column mapped to the box it feeds on your SA105 property pages. There is no gated download and no product to buy, just the schema itself.

You will also find the part most templates get wrong: when a landlord accounting spreadsheet is still a perfectly valid way to meet Making Tax Digital obligations, and the exact point at which it makes sense to graduate to software. A spreadsheet is not obsolete under MTD. Used correctly, it remains an accepted method.

Why a landlord spreadsheet still works in 2026 (and stays MTD-compatible)

There is a persistent myth that Making Tax Digital killed off the landlord spreadsheet. It did not. Under Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, a spreadsheet combined with HMRC-recognised bridging software is an accepted way to keep your digital records and file your quarterly updates. The spreadsheet holds the records; the bridging tool sends them to HMRC. You can check which bridging products are recognised on the gov.uk find-compatible-software list, which explicitly covers tools that connect to records kept in spreadsheets.

The condition that matters is the digital link. The data must travel from your spreadsheet to the bridging software, and on to HMRC, by an electronic connection: cell references, formulae, linked tables, an API, or a CSV exported and imported automatically. What is not allowed is copying and pasting figures, retyping them, or reading a number off one screen and keying it into another. As long as that chain is digitally linked end to end, your spreadsheet is fully compliant. The mechanics of setting this up are covered in our dedicated MTD spreadsheets with bridging software guide.

Whether you are inside MTD yet depends on your gross rental income, tested before any expenses are deducted. The mandation timetable is being phased in:

Gross qualifying income	MTD for Income Tax mandatory from
Over GBP50,000	6 April 2026
Over GBP30,000	6 April 2027
Over GBP20,000	6 April 2028

Because the test is on gross income, a landlord with high rents and a large mortgage can be brought into MTD even if their taxable profit is modest. If you are below the relevant threshold, you can keep using a spreadsheet on its own and file through ordinary self assessment. Either way, the worksheet structure below is the same, so building it now means you are ready whether MTD applies this year or later.

The income worksheet (with copy-paste column structure)

Your income tab records every receipt, in date order, as it arrives. Rental income is taxed on the cash (receipts) basis for most individual landlords, so the date you actually receive the money is what counts, not the date rent was due. Use these columns:

Date received	Property ref	Tenant ref	Amount (GBP)	Income type	Payment method	Bank account	SA105 box
06/04/2026	FLAT-01	T-2026-A	950.00	Rent	Standing order	BTL current	Box 20
15/04/2026	HSE-02	T-2026-B	1,250.00	Rent	Bank transfer	BTL current	Box 20

A few points that catch landlords out. Protected tenancy deposits held in an approved scheme and intended for return to the tenant are not your taxable income, so give them a distinct income type (for example "Deposit held") and keep them out of your rent total. Only amounts you become entitled to keep, such as a deduction for damage or unpaid rent, become taxable, in the period you become entitled to them. Service charges and any other property receipts also belong here, flagged by income type, so your gross figure is complete and reconciles to your bank.

The expense worksheet, mapped to SA105 categories

The most useful thing you can do with your expense tab is structure it so the category totals drop straight onto the SA105. Use a category column whose values match the return, and the year-end becomes a matter of reading off subtotals. This is the layout:

Date paid	Property ref	Supplier	Amount (GBP)	Expense category	SA105 box	Evidence ref
22/04/2026	FLAT-01	Buildings insurer	310.00	Rent, rates, insurance, ground rents	Box 24	INV-0412
03/05/2026	HSE-02	Plumber	185.00	Property repairs and maintenance	Box 25	RCT-0517

The standard categories that mirror the SA105 are:

• Rent, rates, insurance and ground rents (Box 24): buildings and landlord insurance, council tax or business rates where you pay them, ground rent and service charges.
• Property repairs and maintenance (Box 25): like-for-like repairs, redecoration, servicing. Improvements that upgrade the property are capital, not repairs, and belong in the capital improvements log instead.
• Loan interest and other finance costs (Box 26 for the non-residential element; the residential finance-cost figure used for the basic-rate reducer goes in Box 44, see below).
• Legal, management and other professional fees (Box 27): letting agent and management fees, accountancy, and qualifying legal costs.
• Costs of services provided, including wages (Box 28): gardening, cleaning and similar services you provide.
• Other allowable property expenses (Box 29): direct costs that do not fit elsewhere, such as advertising for tenants, phone and stationery for the rental business, and allowable mileage.

Finance costs need their own column and their own discipline. Under Section 24, mortgage and other finance costs are not deducted from your rental profit. Instead they generate a basic-rate tax reducer, currently 20% for 2026/27 and rising to 22% from 2027/28 under the Finance Act 2026. Because the reducer rate rises in step with the basic property rate, no new tax wedge opens for basic-rate landlords. Finance costs are still reported on the return, just not as an ordinary deduction: the loan-interest figure feeds Box 26 (the non-residential element) and the residential finance-cost amount used for the basic-rate reducer is entered in Box 44. The practical point for your spreadsheet: record finance costs in full, in their own clearly labelled column, and keep them out of the deducted expense totals (Boxes 24, 25, 27, 28 and 29). For the full list of what is and is not allowable, see our landlord tax deductions guide.

The per-property summary dashboard

The summary tab turns raw entries into the figures you actually report. Use formulae (a SUMIF on the property reference code is enough) to pull totals from the income and expense tabs, one row per property, with a portfolio total at the foot:

Property ref	Gross income (GBP)	Allowable expenses (GBP)	Net profit/loss (GBP)	Finance costs (GBP)	Gross yield
FLAT-01	11,400	2,150	9,250	4,200	5.7%
HSE-02	15,000	3,400	11,600	6,800	6.2%

The gross yield column is an illustrative input rather than a figure you can reconcile from the columns shown here: it is calculated from each property's purchase price held on your register tab (annual gross rent divided by purchase price), so it does not derive from the income, expense and finance-cost columns alongside it. Keeping finance costs in a separate column on the summary, rather than buried in expenses, is deliberate: it both keeps your profit figure correct and gives you the number you need for the Section 24 reducer at a glance. For individual landlords, profits and losses across all your UK residential lets are pooled into a single UK property business on the SA105, so the portfolio total is what flows onto the return, but the per-property view is what tells you which lets are actually earning their keep. If you want to take per-property analysis further, our guide to tracking rental property profitability per property goes deeper.

Tracking capital improvements for capital gains tax

The fourth worksheet is the one landlords most often forget, and the one that saves the most tax years later. A capital improvement (an extension, a new kitchen that genuinely upgrades the property, a loft conversion) is not an allowable expense against rental income, but it does increase the base cost you deduct when you eventually sell. Capture it the moment it happens, while you still have the invoice:

Date	Property ref	Work done	Cost (GBP)	Evidence ref
12/06/2026	HSE-02	Single-storey rear extension	28,500	CON-0601
20/09/2026	FLAT-01	Full rewire and new consumer unit	4,100	INV-0920

When you sell, this log feeds directly into your capital gains tax calculation. UK residential property gains are taxed at 18% and 24% after the annual exempt amount of GBP3,000, and a UK residential disposal must be reported and the tax paid within 60 days of completion. Do not try to compute the gain inside this spreadsheet; just keep the records clean. Our capital gains tax on property guide covers the calculation, and our CGT record-keeping guide sets out exactly what to retain and for how long.

Setting up and maintaining the spreadsheet

Start with a property register tab. List every property with a short reference code, full address, purchase date, purchase price and acquisition costs (stamp duty, legal fees). Every other worksheet keys back to this reference code, so getting it right first prevents reconciliation headaches later.

Then run a simple cadence rather than a year-end scramble:

• As rent arrives: enter the receipt on the income tab the same week.
• Monthly: post expenses against their receipts, then reconcile every tab against the bank statement so nothing is missed or double-counted.
• Quarterly: if you are within MTD, this is your update point through bridging software; if not, review the summary for cash-flow and arrears.
• Annually (after 5 April): lock and back up the year, read off the SA105 box totals, and prepare the return.

On evidence, a bank-feed CSV is acceptable digital proof of receipts, and a clear photograph of a paper invoice is enough to keep it digitally. The discipline is that every row in your spreadsheet should be traceable to a piece of evidence, referenced in the evidence column. Keep the file in version-controlled cloud storage so you have history and an off-device backup, and protect the access rather than emailing copies around.

How long to keep your landlord records

The retention rule is set by section 12B of the Taxes Management Act 1970. If you let property as an individual, you must keep your records until five years after the 31 January filing deadline for that tax year. In practice that means records for the 2026/27 tax year must be kept until 31 January 2033. The penalty for failing to keep adequate records can be up to GBP3,000 for each year.

Landlords who hold property through a limited company are on a different footing: the Companies Act 2006 sets a minimum of three years from the date a record is made for a private company (the structure of nearly every landlord SPV), but the corporation-tax record-keeping rules require records to be kept for six years from the end of the accounting period, so six years is the figure that governs in practice. As a practical buffer, and because capital gains records may be needed long after the income-tax window closes, many landlords retain everything for around seven years. Our record-keeping guide sets out the full picture of what to track and how long to keep it.

When a spreadsheet is enough, and when to graduate to software

A spreadsheet, paired with bridging software once you are inside MTD, comfortably handles a typical small portfolio. It starts to creak when complexity or volume climbs. Use this as a rough guide:

Situation	Spreadsheet usually fine	Software usually better
Number of units	1 to 3, simple lets	Roughly 10 or more
Structure	Individual or joint ownership	Limited company, mixed-use
Property type	Standard buy-to-let	HMOs, complex licensing
Status	UK-resident landlord	Non-resident landlord scheme
Bank reconciliation	Manual, monthly	Automated bank feeds

When you do move to software, you do not need to pick a product from a list someone wrote for you. HMRC does not provide its own free MTD software and does not recommend any single product; instead, the recognised options (including free tools for simple affairs) are published on the gov.uk find-compatible-software list. For a method-neutral comparison of what is out there, see our guides to landlord accounting software options and free versus paid MTD software.

Common landlord spreadsheet mistakes to avoid

Even a good template fails if it is fed badly. The errors we see most often:

• Recording rent net of agent fees. If your agent deducts their fee and pays you the balance, your gross income is the full rent and the fee is a separate Box 27 expense. Recording only the net amount understates your gross income, which matters because the MTD threshold is tested on gross.
• Folding finance costs into expenses. Mortgage interest is not an ordinary deduction under Section 24. Putting it in the deducted expense totals (Boxes 24, 25, 27, 28 and 29) overstates your relief and produces the wrong tax.
• Confusing repairs with improvements. A like-for-like repair is an income expense; an upgrade is capital and belongs in the improvements log for CGT. Misclassifying either way distorts both numbers.
• Breaking the digital link. Once you are within MTD, copying and pasting figures into your bridging software (rather than linking them) breaks the rules, however tidy the spreadsheet looks.
• Inconsistent references and dates. Mixed property codes and date formats make SUMIF formulae and bank reconciliation unreliable. Fix the conventions once, in the property register, and apply them everywhere.

When to consider professional help

A spreadsheet handles the mechanics; it does not handle judgement. It is worth bringing in a property accountant where the structure or the planning carries real consequences, for example holding property through a limited company or weighing incorporation, joint-ownership and income-allocation questions, mixed residential and commercial use, non-resident landlord obligations, or timing a disposal for capital gains tax. These are areas where a generic template cannot help and a wrong call is expensive to unwind.

If you are not sure whether you have reached that point, our explainer on what a property accountant does sets out where specialist input adds value. A well-kept spreadsheet makes that work faster and cheaper, because the records are already in order. Good systems and the right advice tend to work best together.