Rent Ledger
Every charge and payment, a running balance, and how much of it is rent.
The arithmetic that ends up in front of a judge
Three tools here orbit a rent balance and none of them held one. The receipt records a payment. The late notice demands an amount. The prorated calculator works out a part-month. All three asked the landlord what the balance was — so the balance got worked out on paper, and it is the one piece of arithmetic on these documents that somebody may later be asked to defend.
This is the ledger they should have been reading. Payments you have already receipted on this device are offered for import rather than retyped, and imported rows stay locked to the receipt so one payment cannot end up with two different amounts.
How much of it is rent
A tenant who owes $1,450 in rent and a $50 late fee, and pays $1,000, has paid something — but what they paid decides whether rent is still outstanding, and unpaid rent is usually the only ground that matters. Apply the money to the fee first and the rent stays nominally unpaid.
That is exactly why a number of states restrict applying a rent payment to fees before rent. We have not researched which ones. Rather than pick a default and let it look like a legal answer, the tool asks you to choose the order, explains what each one does, and prints the order used on the statement so the reader can see it. It is the same rule this site applies to every unverified figure: the absence of a finding is not a finding.
Where it goes next
Once the balance is right, the late rent notice is the document that demands it, and the rent receipt is what you issue when it lands — which puts the payment straight back on this ledger. At the end of the tenancy, the deposit return letter is where any unpaid balance has to be itemized.
Questions people ask
- What is a rent ledger?
- A record of everything charged to a tenancy and everything paid against it, in date order, with a running balance. It is the document that answers 'how much does this tenant owe, and for what' — which is the figure a late rent notice, a deposit disposition and a court filing all depend on.
- Why does it matter whether a payment goes to rent or to fees?
- Because the ground for ending a tenancy is usually unpaid rent, not unpaid fees. If a partial payment is applied to a late fee first, the rent stays nominally unpaid — which is why a number of states restrict doing it in that order. This tool does not choose for you and does not claim any order is lawful in your state; it makes the choice explicit and prints which order was used on the statement.
- Does it know my state's rules on applying payments?
- No, and it says so rather than guessing. We have not researched which states restrict applying a rent payment to fees before rent. Following the same rule this site applies to deposit deadlines and drill frequencies: the absence of a finding is not a finding, so the tool tells you there is something to know instead of picking a default and implying it is correct.
- Do I have to retype payments I already receipted?
- No. Payments recorded in the rent receipt tool on this device are offered for import, matched on tenant and property. Imported rows are not editable here — the receipt stays the record, so the same payment cannot end up with two different amounts in two places.