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. You're added to the account free, open a ledger on the return's basis, and export it. The arrangement that goes with it is below, terms included.
A fixed fee against a variable shoebox
Most landlord returns are priced flat, and the cost of doing one is hours. 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.
MTD turns one return into four updates
From April 2026 landlords over £50,000 of qualifying income keep digital records and send quarterly updates. The threshold falls to £30,000 in April 2027 and £20,000 in April 2028. Four touchpoints a year per client, each needing digital records, means the practice picks something or handles a dozen formats. The cheaper it is for the client, the easier that conversation.
General bookkeeping software is the wrong shape
A landlord with three flats doesn't need a chart of accounts, invoicing or VAT. 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. 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. 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. Paid date or period due date, income received or income due. Arrears are shown as a cash fact on either basis.
The whole ledger, as a CSV
Every rent transaction for every property you've been given, as a spreadsheet, whenever you want it. It exports what your login can see, so a restricted login exports its properties, not the portfolio.
What this is not
No practice view yet. Each client's account is opened separately, switched from one login. A firm with a dozen landlord clients will want them on one screen. That's a real gap, not a design choice.
It isn't a general ledger and doesn't try to be. No chart of accounts, no invoicing, no VAT, no company accounts. A landlord trading through a limited company still needs bookkeeping software for the company, and LetBuddy for the properties.
Submission to HMRC isn't live yet. The records and totals are. The submit step is marked coming soon until LetBuddy is on GOV.UK's list of compatible software.
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?
Not yet. Each client's account is opened separately, switched from one login. A practice view across clients is what firms with several landlord clients will want, and we're saying so here rather than letting you find out.
Does it submit MTD quarterly updates?
Not yet. The records, the categories and the quarter totals are there. The submission is built against HMRC's MTD for Income Tax API and tested in their sandbox. Until LetBuddy is on GOV.UK's list of compatible software the submit step is marked coming soon, and the figures are filed through you or through recognised software.
Ask to be listed
Email hello@letbuddy.co.uk with the firm's name, the region you cover, who supervises you for anti-money-laundering, and a link to the page on your site that says you act for landlords. If you haven't seen the accountant view yet, say so and we'll show you it first. It goes to the people who build LetBuddy and can agree terms.