What a client on The Ledger hands you in January, where each figure came from, and how you get in.
Most of what you bill a self-managing landlord for is reverse-engineering: which deposits were rent, which payment was the mortgage, what the escrow actually paid out, whether the "$1,240 HVAC" was a repair or an improvement. The Ledger is built so that work is done before the file reaches you - and so you can see how it was done, line by line, instead of taking our word for it.
One PDF, generated by the client in one click. Every section below is in the sample.
| Section | What it settles |
|---|---|
| Cover and readiness line | How the property is held and the owner's share; then one line - Forms 1098 on file: n of m, statements under 12 months old, entries not yet checked against paper, receipts missing. |
| What we know is missing | Listed, not discovered: a 1098 not yet received, prior depreciation not entered, a receipt over the threshold not attached. |
| How each figure was worked out | For every Schedule E line: where it comes from and what would make it wrong. A per-loan table says whether the interest figure is Form 1098 box 1, a statement's year-to-date (marked provisional), or our arithmetic (marked ours). |
| How the figures were checked | The provenance mix: matched to a bank statement line, vouched for by the mortgage statement, from the owner's spreadsheet, typed in - with counts. |
| Schedule E, property by property | Part I columns, one per property, with the portfolio total. Mortgage payments are split to interest only; escrow disbursements come from the escrow analysis; deposits held are excluded from rent. |
| Depreciation schedule and basis | Building and each capital improvement on its own clock, mid-month convention. Where you have a schedule, one field replaces our estimate and the row reads "yours". |
| Source documents on file | Closing statement, 1098s, escrow analysis, tax bill, insurance page, lease - named per property, with what a preparer would normally want that is not on file. |
| The owner's answers | The twelve questions no import can answer - §1031, personal use, cash paid over the year's 1099 threshold ($2,000 from 2026, $600 before), repairs versus improvements - answered or shown as unanswered. |
Download the sample package (PDF) Open it as a page Sample Schedule E .txf
Two fictional properties, one tax year, generated by the app exactly as a client's would be. The .txf is the same figures as a TurboTax Desktop import, one Schedule E copy per property - for the clients who still file themselves.
This is a governance problem before it is a bookkeeping one: the person who enters a figure has to trust what went in, and the person who signs the return has to trust what comes out. The package is built so both can check it - every line names the document it rests on or the arithmetic behind it, and the client has the same view you do.
Every entry in the books carries a provenance class, and the package prints the mix. A rent entry that matched a line on an imported bank statement says so. A mortgage payment the statement balance confirms says so. A figure the client typed from memory says that too. The interest line is the strictest case: it prints as a Form 1098 figure only when a 1098 is on file; before that it is the lender's year-to-date from a monthly statement plus the payments logged since, marked provisional, with the statement date.
Escrow is deducted on what the servicer paid out, from the annual escrow analysis, never on what was paid in - and a bill typed in directly on top of it is flagged as a double count. In the year a home became a rental, interest and the escrow lines are the rental months' share, with the personal remainder named.
Under Sharing, by email. You get a read-only seat on that property - every entry, receipt, document and report, nothing editable. Free for you; the client's plan covers it.
Generated in one click, per year, for all properties or one. Also available: the transaction CSV with the matched bank line on every row, and the individual reports.
Nothing is locked in. Every client can export everything - CSV, the full backup, the receipts - and delete the account themselves. What we keep and who can see it is written down in plain English.
Any client who manages their own rentals - one door or a whole block. Free to start, no card. Free keeps three properties, 30 papers read a month and every export; the CPA package is on Premium - $20 a month or $199 a year (promo code SAVE20: 20% off the first year). Write to hello@thepropertyledger.app - a person reads it, and it is the same person who built the app and files a Schedule E of his own.