Setting Up Tenants & Leases: Automating Rent Collection

Rent collection is the primary income stream for any real estate portfolio. To keep your cash flow bookkeeping accurate and automated, Mogul Books links tenant profiles, lease contracts, and bank transactions together.

This document walks through setting up tenants, registering active leases, and configuring auto-matching for tenant payments.

The Tenant & Lease Relationship

In Mogul Books, a Tenant is a contact profile, while a Lease defines the financial contract associated with a specific Unit for a defined date range.

A tenant must be linked to an active lease.
A lease maps the recurring monthly rent obligation to the ledger's Accounts Receivable (1200).

Step 1: Registering a Tenant & Lease

To set up a new tenant:

1. Navigate to the Setup Console and select the Tenants & Leases tab.

2. Click + Register Tenant.

3. Fill in the profile fields:

Tenant Name: Full legal name (used for transaction matching).
Contact Info: Email and phone.
Unit Assignment: Select the specific property and unit they are renting (e.g., "Tempe Quadplex > Unit 1").

4. Input the lease parameters:

Monthly Rent: The rent amount (e.g., $1,800.00).
Lease Start & End Dates: Contract dates.
Due Day: The day of the month rent is due (typically the 1st).
Security Deposit: The deposit amount collected (pre-fills the escrow deposit template).

Step 2: How Rent Billing Works Under the Hood

When a lease is active, Mogul Books handles rent recognition based on your accounting method:

Cash Method (Default)

When rent is received from the tenant, you select the "Received Money" intent (or let the bank matcher auto-post it). Mogul Books debit cash and credits rental income directly:

Dr 1110 - Operating Cash — $1,800.00
Cr 4010 - Rental Income (tagged to property/unit) — $1,800.00

Accrual Method

On the due date, Mogul Books automatically generates an invoice entry recognizing accounts receivable and rental income:

Dr 1200 - Accounts Receivable — $1,800.00
Cr 4010 - Rental Income — $1,800.00

When the tenant pays, the cash receipt clears the accounts receivable balance:

Dr 1110 - Operating Cash — $1,800.00
Cr 1200 - Accounts Receivable — $1,800.00

Automated Rent Matching

Mogul Books' bank feed matcher is pre-wired to recognize tenant payments. When a bank transaction is imported via Plaid:

1. Name Matching: The matcher compares the bank memo counterparty name against your registered tenant list (e.g., "Zelle payment from Sarah Chen" matches Sarah Chen).

2. Amount Check: The matcher verifies if the payment amount matches the expected monthly rent defined on the tenant's lease (within a $\pm$ 3-day window).

3. One-Tap Reconcile: If the match confidence is high, the transaction is flagged in your review queue as "Rent Payment Matched." You click confirm, and Mogul Books posts the JEs, updates the tenant's lease ledger, and marks the month as paid.