Your goal is to collect what you are owed across all your properties, never be surprised by a lease ending, and know which property earns and which one drains you. This is a weekly routine that takes minutes with the free rental portfolio sheet, once your contracts and payments are logged.
Step 1: call overdue tenants in the right order
Open the Overdue sheet. It is sorted by the largest balance, and each row has the tenant, phone, property, unit and months overdue. In the sample data inside the sheet (made-up names): contract C004 is 19,500 overdue and comes first, then C001 at 10,000 (two months), then C006 at 8,000. Start at the top: the biggest amount deserves the first call, and anything two months or more shows red so you know where to be firmer.
Before calling, make sure the payment was not logged against the wrong contract: open Payments and search by contract number. A tenant who paid in advance (C003 with -6,000 in the example) does not appear in the list, by design.
Step 2: renew contracts before they end
Open the Renewals sheet. It lists contracts ending within the number of days you set in Settings (60 in the example), soonest first: C002 in 37 days, then C001 and C006 in 54 days. Anything at 30 days or fewer shows red. Talk to the tenant about the renewal and the new rent with the phone number right there.
Once agreed, add a new contract row in the Contracts sheet for the same unit and tenant with its date and new rent. Do not edit the old contract's dates: it carries its payments and arrears. It will show expired and the new one active, so the unit keeps its full history.
Step 3: look at vacant units
In the Units sheet, filter by status "vacant". Each vacant unit is rent lost every month: compare its listed rent with its rented neighbours and check whether it needs repair before you advertise it. The example has three vacant units out of eight.
Step 4: close the month with the monthly report
Change "report month" in Settings and open the Monthly report. For each property you see expected rent from contracts covering the month, collected from payments dated in the month, collection rate, expenses and net. Note that a month's collections can include earlier arrears or an advance payment, so do not compare them to expected rent alone; in November 2026 in the example the 12,000 collected all came from one property because of two payments on contract C003, one of them in advance.
What the sheet does not do
It does not send reminders, calculate late fees or raise rent yearly; you make the call and type the increase in the new contract. And only one person can write in it at a time. If you have collectors and staff, or want automatic reminders and permissions, that is what we build as a custom program.
For the sheet's details and columns read the rental portfolio sheet explained.
FAQ
How often should I review the lists? Once a week is enough for overdue and renewals, and once at month end for the report.
What about an expired contract that still owes money? It stays in Overdue until its balance is settled, even if the unit is now vacant.