App builder

Close each month in a rental bookkeeping app
built around your properties and units.

Tell Netiva how you hold your rentals and the agent builds a web app that files every rent payment and repair bill by property and unit, then rolls them into owner statements and a year-end summary.

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Starter prompt

Build a rental bookkeeping web app for a landlord with a duplex and two single-family rentals held in two LLCs, one shared with a sibling. Record each property’s units, owners and bank account, plus each unit’s rented and personal-use days. Log every rent payment and bill as a transaction with date, property, optional unit, category, amount, payee and a receipt, and keep deposits received, refunded and kept on separate categories. Add a monthly close per bank account that links each cleared item to its statement period and compares the beginning and ending balances, an owner statement per property each month and a year-end summary.

Build it in Netiva Paste the prompt into a new workspace and adjust it to your business.
Overview

Who this rental bookkeeping app is for

Most small landlords keep their books in a banking app and a spreadsheet that falls behind by spring. Rent from the duplex lands in the same account as the fourplex water bill, the roof repair invoice sits in a camera roll, and every February someone rebuilds the year line by line. A rental bookkeeping app built with Netiva is a real estate accounting app shaped around your own doors: each payment gets a property, a unit and a category, each month is checked against the bank statement, and the summary your accountant asks for is already sorted.

Key features

What your rental bookkeeping app can do

  • Income and expenses by property and unit

    Rent, late fees, repair bills and property taxes are each logged as a transaction tied to a property and, where it applies, a unit, so every door shows its own income, expenses and net for the month and year.

    • A category list matched to the expense lines your preparer uses
    • Building-wide bills split across units by each unit’s share
    • Your own unit’s share of a shared bill kept out of rental totals
    • Saved views by property, unit, category or month

  • Month-end bank reconciliation

    Tick off transactions as they appear on the bank statement, type in the beginning and ending balances and attach the PDF. The close screen shows the difference until it reaches zero, then marks the month reconciled.

    • One close per bank account, even across several LLCs
    • Uncleared items listed oldest first and carried into the next close
    • A reminder email while last month is still open
    • Every closed month kept with its statement file and the items it cleared

  • Owner statements for co-owners

    Once a month is closed, the app lays out a statement for each property: opening balance, rent collected, expenses, owner draws and the ending balance. Co-owners sign in to read theirs.

    • Each co-owner sees statements for the properties they share in
    • An email with a link as soon as a statement is ready
    • Line-item detail with the receipt behind each expense
    • Past statements listed month by month

  • A year-end package for your accountant

    The summary page totals the tax year by property and category, lists what you paid each vendor and gathers the receipts, closing statements and bank statements your preparer asks for.

    • Possible improvements listed apart from repairs, for review
    • Deposits kept at move-out shown on their own line, apart from refunds
    • Documents grouped by property and tax year
    • New columns added by chat when your preparer asks for them
Data model

The collections behind it

Netiva keeps your records in built-in collections. Here’s a starting structure — the agent adapts it to your prompt, and you can change it any time.

Properties

Each rental you own, with how it’s held and the account its money moves through.

  • Name (required) A nickname such as Oak Street duplex Text
  • Address (required) Text
  • Property type (required) Single-family, multi-family, short-term rental or commercial Text
  • Held by (required) Your own name, or the LLC or partnership on the deed Text
  • Owners Each co-owner and their share, such as 50/50 Paragraph
  • Bank account (required) A nickname and the last four digits only Text
  • Placed in service When it was first ready and available for rent Date
  • Closing statement From the purchase, for your preparer File

Units

The doors inside each property, with the rent, the deposit you hold and the days it was used.

  • Property (required) Relation to Properties
  • Unit (required) Unit A, Upper, Basement… Text
  • Use (required) Rented, vacant or owner-occupied Text
  • Monthly rent Number
  • Deposit held A balance you owe back, not income Number
  • Share of building Percent of rooms or square feet, used to split building-wide bills Number
  • Fair rental days Days rented at a fair rental price this tax year — Schedule E line 2 Number
  • Personal use days Days you, your family or a friend used the unit this year Number

Transactions

Every dollar in or out, tied to a property and, when it applies, to one unit.

  • Date (required) When the rent came in or the bill was paid Date
  • Property (required) Relation to Properties
  • Unit Blank for building-wide bills Relation to Units
  • Category (required) Rents received, Repairs, Owner draw, Possible improvement, Deposit received/refunded/kept Text
  • Amount (required) Positive for money in, negative for money out Number
  • Payee or payer Tenant, contractor, insurer or tax office Text
  • Reconciled in The close whose statement it appeared on; blank while it’s still outstanding Relation to Monthly closes
  • Receipt Invoice, receipt or tax bill File

Monthly closes

One record per bank account and month, checking the ledger against the bank statement.

  • Bank account (required) Chosen from the same fixed list of account nicknames used on Properties Text
  • Month (required) First day of the statement period being closed Date
  • Statement beginning balance (required) Typed in from the statement; it matches the last close’s ending balance Number
  • Statement ending balance (required) Typed in from the bank statement Number
  • Status (required) Open, reconciled or statements sent Text
  • Bank statement File
  • Closed by Filled in from the signed-in user Text

Required field. Types are Netiva collection field types.

Screens

Pages and screens to start with

A typical first version. Ask the agent for more, or annotate the preview to change any of them.

  • Ledger

    Every transaction with filters for property, unit, category, month and whether it has cleared, plus a quick-add form that fits a phone screen.

    Signed-in users

  • Property books

    Income, expenses and net for one property by month and year to date, broken out by unit and category, with the receipt behind each line.

    Signed-in users

  • Bank reconciliation

    Items that cleared in this statement period beside the beginning and ending balances you typed in, with the difference shown until it’s zero and uncleared items carried forward.

    Signed-in users

  • Owner statement

    Opening balance, rent collected, expenses, owner draws and ending balance for one property and month, readable by each co-owner.

    Signed-in users

  • Deposit ledger

    The balance held for each unit, with deposits received, refunded and the part kept at move-out, which is the only piece that reaches income.

    Signed-in users

  • Year-end summary

    Totals by property and category for the tax year, vendor totals, fair rental and personal use days per unit, and every document your preparer opens with their own sign-in.

    Signed-in users
How it works

From prompt to a live rental bookkeeping app

  1. Describe how you own your rentals

    Tell Netiva which properties you have, how many units each has, whose name or LLC is on each deed and which bank accounts the rent goes into. The agent drafts the properties, units, transactions and closes collections.

  2. Set categories and opening balances

    Ask your preparer which category list they want and enter it with each account’s opening balance. Then add this year’s transactions, or have the collection assistant tidy payee names and fill categories across rows.

  3. Check a statement in the preview

    Open a sample owner statement and a month-end close in the live preview, annotate the lines you want moved or renamed and watch the agent update them.

  4. Publish and set the monthly rhythm

    Publish in one click, invite co-owners to sign in and schedule the reminder for any month not yet reconciled. Every change is checkpointed, so a statement layout you don’t like can be rolled back.

Why Netiva

Netiva vs a traditional build

Building a rental bookkeeping app with Netiva compared with a traditional build
Criterion With Netiva Traditional build
Bank reconciliation A close screen per account that shows the difference until cleared items match the statement Scrolling a banking app beside a spreadsheet and hoping the totals match
Accountant handoff Year totals by property and category, with receipts and closing statements attached A folder of receipts and a bank export sorted by hand before the filing deadline
Getting started Describe what you need in chat and watch it take shape in a live preview Hire developers, or stitch together templates, plugins and a hosting plan
Content and data Built-in collections with nine field types, bound straight to your pages Set up and connect a separate database or CMS
Making changes Ask the agent; every change is checkpointed and reversible File a ticket, wait for a sprint, redeploy
Hosting and domain Global hosting and automatic SSL; connect a custom domain from the Starter plan Buy hosting, then install and renew SSL certificates yourself
Code ownership Clean production code you own and can export Locked into a template, plugin or agency setup
Examples

Ways teams use it

  • An owner who lives in one side of a duplex

    Insurance, the water bill and the new gutters cover the whole building, so each one is split by the rented unit’s share of rooms or square feet. The rental totals show only the rented side, and the owner’s own half stays out of them.

  • Two friends who co-own a fourplex

    Each partner signs in to read the monthly statement for the building, sees the owner draws paid to both of them and can open the invoice behind any repair without asking the other for a copy of the spreadsheet.

  • A part-time landlord with eight doors across two LLCs

    Each LLC has its own bank account and its own month-end close, and the year-end summary comes out per entity, so each set of numbers reaches the preparer separately instead of as one mixed ledger.

Good to know

Before you build

  • Records for your preparer, not a tax return

    The app adds up what you enter. It doesn’t calculate tax, depreciation or loss limits, and it doesn’t decide what’s deductible. Your accountant chooses how each total is reported, including which form an LLC with several owners files.

  • Repairs and improvements are handled differently

    Under IRS rules, an improvement — work that betters, restores or adapts a property — is capitalized and depreciated rather than deducted like an ordinary repair. Log anything that might qualify under its own category and let your preparer decide.

  • No bank feed out of the box

    Netiva doesn’t import bank files or statements for you. Transactions are typed in, or pulled from a bank data provider’s API if you have access to one and connect it with your key stored securely.

  • Deposit rules come from your state

    States set their own rules on where security deposits are held, whether they earn interest and how fast they’re returned. The app records each deposit and what happened to it; it doesn’t check those rules.

Compliance note

This app keeps records; it doesn’t prepare returns, calculate tax or depreciation, or give tax advice. Its totals are for your accountant or tax preparer, who decides what’s deductible and where it’s reported. Categories, split percentages and anything tied to a tax year are entered by you — check them against the current IRS forms and your preparer’s instructions each year.

FAQ

Questions about building a rental bookkeeping app

Can the app sort landlord expenses the way Schedule E lists them?

Yes. You set the category list, so it can follow the Schedule E expense lines — advertising, cleaning and maintenance, insurance, mortgage interest, repairs, taxes, utilities and the rest — and the year-end summary totals each one by property. Each unit also carries its fair rental days and personal use days, the counts line 2 asks for. Depreciation stays with your preparer, and a partnership reports on Form 8825 instead.

Are security deposits counted as rental income in the app?

Not when they come in. Money taken as a deposit is logged as Deposit received and shown as a balance you hold for the unit, in line with IRS Publication 527: a deposit you plan to return isn’t income. A refund at move-out is logged as Deposit refunded, and whatever you keep as Deposit kept, which is income in the year you keep it. Last month’s rent collected up front is advance rent, so log it as rent when it arrives.

How do co-owners get their monthly owner statements?

Each co-owner gets their own sign-in and sees statements only for the properties they share in. When you mark a month as reconciled, a scheduled email sends them a link. The statement lists the opening balance, rent collected, expenses, owner draws and the ending balance, with the receipt behind each expense one tap away.

How does the app split bills for a duplex I live in?

Each unit carries its share of the building, based on rooms or square footage — the two common methods IRS Publication 527 describes. When you enter a building-wide bill such as insurance, the app records the rented unit’s share as a rental expense and keeps your own unit’s share out of the rental totals. Bills that belong only to the rented unit aren’t split.

Can the app pull transactions straight from my bank?

Not by itself, because Netiva doesn’t import bank files. Apps built with Netiva can call any REST API with keys stored securely, so if you use a bank data provider that offers an API, you can ask the agent to fetch new transactions into a review queue. Otherwise, enter them from your statement and tick each one into the open close as it clears.

Can I hand my rental bookkeeping app’s code to a developer later?

Yes. Netiva writes clean, framework-standard code that you own and can export whenever you like, with no proprietary runtime. A developer can pick it up where the agent left off, and every change made along the way is checkpointed, so you can compare versions or roll back a statement layout you didn’t want.

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Drafted with AI assistance from Netiva’s product pages and reviewed by the Netiva team. Example data models, screens and prompts are illustrative starting points, not customer projects.

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