How to track house rent in Bangladesh without a notebook

If you own a flat or two in Dhaka, Chattogram or Sylhet, there's a good chance your rent records live in three places: a notebook in a drawer, your memory, and a phone full of bKash messages. That system mostly works. It stops working in predictable ways: a tenant who pays in two parts, a month you're travelling, a disagreement about March, a tax return that asks what the flat actually earned.

This guide sets out a simple way to keep rent records that holds up. You can run it on paper, in a spreadsheet or in an app. What matters is the structure, not the tool.

Why the notebook fails

A rent notebook is usually a list of dates and amounts: "4B, 5 Sept, 25,000 bKash". It records payments. What it doesn't record is what was owed. So when you want to know whether anyone is behind, you have to reconstruct twelve months of "should have paid" in your head and compare.

The other problems follow from that:

• Part payments get lost. "10,000 on the 3rd, 15,000 on the 12th" is two lines that nobody adds up.
• Arrears hide. If a tenant pays this month but still owes for July, the notebook shows a payment this month and looks fine.
• Proof is scattered. The bKash SMS is on your phone, the cash payment is only in the book, the cheque is in the bank statement.
• The advance drifts. The one number you'll need at move-out, years from now, was written on the first page and never touched again.

The rule: one record per flat per month

The fix is to write down what's due before anything is paid. Each flat gets one line per month:

Create all of a month's lines on the first day of the month, before any money arrives. Now the page answers the only question that matters: who still owes what? The balance column does the work the notebook couldn't.

A few conventions keep it clean:

• "Due by" is the last day before it's late, not the day it's due. Most Dhaka leases say "by the 10th", so use that.
• A part payment updates the same line. Paid becomes ৳10,000 and then ৳18,000. Don't start a new line for the second instalment.
• Arrears are paid oldest first. If 3A pays ৳18,000 in October while still owing ৳8,000 for September, clear September first, then put ৳10,000 against October. This is how most landlords reckon it, and it stops old debts hiding behind recent payments.

Give a receipt for every payment

Every payment, however small, should produce a receipt with a number on it. A receipt does three things:

1. It tells the tenant exactly what their money was for: which month, which flat, how much.
2. It gives both of you a reference. "Receipt 42" ends a conversation that "I think I paid in September" starts.
3. It puts all the proof in one format, whether the rent came by bKash, cash or cheque.

The Premises Rent Control Act, 1991, the law that covers renting in Bangladesh's towns and cities, expects a landlord to give a receipt for rent received. More practically, a numbered receipt is the single best defence in any disagreement.

A good receipt includes your name, the tenant's name, the flat, the month or months covered, the amount, the method with any transaction ID, the date and a receipt number. We cover the format in detail, with a free generator, in Rent receipt format for Bangladesh.

Match every method the same way

Money arrives in different ways, and each leaves a different trail. Record them all the same way, with a reference when there is one:

• bKash and Nagad: write the transaction ID from the SMS. It's the fastest way to match a payment later.
• Bank transfer: the reference from the bank app or statement.
• Cheque: the cheque number, and the date it cleared if that's different.
• Cash: there's no external trail, so the receipt is the only proof. Never skip it for cash.

Keep the advance on its own line

Write the advance down once, on its own, per tenant: amount, date paid, and what the lease says about it (for example, "adjustable against the last two months after notice"). Don't mix it into the monthly lines, and don't count it as income. It's the tenant's money until the lease ends.

When the tenant gives notice, you'll need this line. Our guide to adjusting a tenant's advance fairly covers what happens then.

The ten-minute monthly check

Once a month, around the 12th, after the "by the 10th" deadline, do a short review:

1. Every line has a status. Paid, part paid or unpaid. No blanks.
2. Unpaid and part paid lines get a follow-up. A polite reminder the same day. The earlier you ask, the easier the conversation.
3. Total the month. Rent collected against rent due. A single figure tells you whether this month is normal.
4. Check last month is closed. Anything still open from last month is now arrears. Flag it.
5. File the proof. Screenshots of transfers, cheque photos, receipt copies, in a folder named for the month.

Ten minutes a month is the difference between knowing and guessing. When the tax return comes around, the year's income is already added up.

Add the costs, or you only know half the story

Rent is income, but the flat also costs you: service charge, repairs, holding tax, bills you paid on the tenant's behalf. Keep a second list per flat with date, what it was for, and the amount. At the end of the year, rent received minus these costs is what the flat actually earned. That number is almost always smaller than owners expect, and knowing it helps you set next year's rent sensibly.

A spreadsheet or an app

Everything above works in a notebook if you're disciplined, and in a spreadsheet if you're comfortable with formulas. The difficulties are practical: creating the month's lines on time, numbering receipts without gaps, sending them, and keeping the phone and the laptop in step.

This is exactly what Griho does. It creates each month's rent for every flat on its own, from the lease. Tapping Mark received records the payment against the oldest month owed, numbers the receipt and sends it to the tenant on WhatsApp or email. The month's total, and who's behind, are on the first screen you see. It works on your phone even with no signal. See how on Rent tracking for every flat.

Quick checklist

• One line per flat per month, created before money arrives
• "Due by" is the last day before late
• Part payments update the same line; arrears are cleared oldest first
• A numbered receipt for every payment, cash included
• A reference for every non-cash payment
• The advance kept on its own line, never counted as income
• A ten-minute check around the 12th of each month
• Costs recorded per flat, so you know the real earnings

Start with next month. Create the lines on the first, fill them in as money arrives, and give a receipt every time. By the end of the quarter, the notebook will feel like a very long way round.