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For property accountants

Landlord clients who arrive already categorised

Your landlord clients keep their records in LetBuddy through the year: rent against tenancies, expenses against properties, every entry in an SA105 box.

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You're added to the account free and open a ledger on the return's basis. Export them for your working papers whenever you want. The arrangement that goes with it is below, terms included.

A tidy desk holds an open ledger, a receipt spike, a year-end folder tied with ribbon, a warm lamp and a mug.
A tidy desk holds an open ledger, a receipt spike, a year-end folder tied with ribbon, a warm lamp and a mug.

A fixed fee against a variable shoebox

Most landlord returns are priced flat, and the cost of doing one is hours.

Read the detail

A client who arrives with a year of bank statements, a folder of receipts and no idea which mortgage figure is interest costs three times what a client with a categorised ledger does, at the same fee.

Every client's records arrive in a different state

A year of bank statements, a folder of receipts and a spreadsheet each landlord built their own way means the first hours of every return go on working out what the figures are, before any advice is given.

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Records kept by SA105 box from the first entry arrive in the same shape for every client, every time.

General bookkeeping software is the wrong shape

A landlord with three flats doesn't need a chart of accounts, invoicing or VAT.

Read the detail

They need rent against a tenancy, expenses against a property, and the SA105 boxes those fall into, at a price that reflects three flats rather than a trading business. Charging a landlord £30 a month for software they use for one return a year is how a recommendation comes back to the firm.

You're added to the client's account, free

The landlord invites you from their team settings.

Read the detail

You see the properties you were given and nothing else, with edit or read-only rights per property. It costs them nothing extra and it costs you nothing. There's no per-seat charge anywhere in the product.

The ledger opens in SA105 boxes

Not the landlord's dashboard with buttons you can't press.

Read the detail

The quarter's income and expenses by SA105 category: rent, rates and insurance; repairs and maintenance; loan interest and finance costs; legal, management and professional fees; cost of services; travel; other allowable. Recorded against the property as they happened.

On the basis the return will use

Cash or accruals, set on the account.

Read the detail

Paid date or period due date, income received or income due. Arrears are shown as a cash fact on either basis.

Your working papers, as a CSV

Every rent transaction for every property you've been given, as a spreadsheet, whenever you want it, for your own file or to bring into the software you file from.

Read the detail

The export gives what your login can see, so a restricted login exports its properties, not the portfolio.

Where it sits

Each client's account is opened from one login and switched between, rather than all your landlord clients on one screen. A firm with a dozen of them will want that view; tell us if that's you.

It isn't a general ledger and doesn't try to be. No chart of accounts, no invoicing, no VAT, no company accounts, and no sync into Xero, QuickBooks or FreeAgent. It sits alongside the practice's own software rather than replacing it: a landlord trading through a limited company still needs bookkeeping software for the company, and LetBuddy for the properties.

Nothing is paid for a recommendation. A landlord pushed toward the wrong tool by their accountant blames the accountant, so the only arrangement on offer is one with no money in it.

The listing: we send landlords to you

Every landlord in LetBuddy is told at tax time to file through their accountant. A lot of them don't have one. We're building a list of property accountants, by region, on this site and in the product where that sentence appears, and pointing those landlords at the firms on it. In return we ask that you mention LetBuddy to landlord clients when it would help them. That's the whole arrangement. No fee either way, nothing to reconcile.

The list is open but not yet public. It goes live on this site and in the product once 5 firms across more than one region are on it, because a directory of two firms helps neither of them. Firms that join now are on it from the day it opens.

Who is listed

  • · The firm is supervised for anti-money-laundering by a professional body or by HMRC. Every practising UK accountancy firm is, so this is a check rather than a hurdle.
  • · The firm takes on landlord clients and prepares property income returns, and says so on its own site.
  • · The firm has used its free LetBuddy login on at least one client's account, so it has seen what a landlord arrives with.

How it ends

  • · Listings run for twelve months. Before the anniversary we ask whether the firm is still practising and still wants to be listed. A yes renews it. Silence ends it.
  • · Either side can end it at any time. From our side that means thirty days' notice, unless a firm stops being supervised or we receive a serious complaint, in which case removal is immediate.
  • · Nobody pays for a place on the list and none are sold. Firms are listed alphabetically within their region.
  • · A listing is not an endorsement of the firm's advice. LetBuddy checks the three criteria above and nothing else. The engagement is between the landlord and the firm.

Common questions

What does the accountant login cost?

Nothing, to you or to your client. LetBuddy charges per property, never per user, so a landlord adding their accountant changes their bill by zero. You see the properties you're given, with read-only or edit rights, so acting for one landlord in a family doesn't show you the others.

Is there a commission or referral fee?

No. A landlord's second and third properties are £5 a month each and charging stops at the fifteenth, so a share of that would be about a pound. What we offer instead is a listing where landlords who have no accountant look for one. A landlord is worth a few hundred pounds a year to a firm. We send them to the firms on the list.

Which basis is the ledger prepared on?

Whichever the client's return uses. The accountant view recognises rent on the paid date under the cash basis and on the period due date under accruals, per the setting on the account, and shows the quarter's income and expenses by SA105 box on that basis. Arrears are shown as a cash fact either way.

Can I see all my landlord clients from one login?

Each client's account is opened from one login and switched between. A firm with several landlord clients will want them on one screen; if that's you, say so — it's the kind of thing that decides what gets built next.

Ask to be listed

Your name, a work email and the firm are enough to start. We'll ask for the region you cover and your anti-money-laundering supervisor when we reply, and if you haven't seen the accountant view yet we'll show you it first. It goes to the people who build LetBuddy and can agree terms.

A person replies within one working day.

Prefer email? Write to hello@letbuddy.co.uk. Or look around the demo.