The short version
There is no single best rent arrears software. There is a best one for how rent moves through your agency:
| If rent… | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Goes through your client account | Your client accounting system | It already holds every receipt. A second system would only disagree with it. |
| Goes straight to the landlord | A rent-status tool | You need to know who has paid, not reconcile money you never hold. |
| Is mixed, or you have under ten tenancies | A rent-status tool or a spreadsheet | Accounting software is a lot of set-up for a question with two inputs. |
The rest of this guide is how to tell them apart, and the five things any tool you pick must get right.
What arrears software actually has to do
Strip the marketing away and arrears tracking is two facts per property: what was due and what was paid. Everything else is presentation.
That sounds simple, and it is — until the details arrive:
- Rent due today is not late. Rent due on the 1st is late on the 2nd. A tool that flags it on the 1st trains you to ignore its warnings.
- Rent rises must not rewrite history. If the rent goes from £1,100 to £1,150 in March, January and February are still owed at £1,100. A tool that multiplies the new rent by every past month invents debt.
- A new tenant is a clean slate. Arrears belong to a tenancy, not a building. The next tenant should not inherit the last one's balance.
- Payments settle the oldest rent first. Otherwise a tenant two months behind who pays this month looks paid up.
- Weekly and four-weekly rent are not monthly. Four-weekly rent is thirteen payments a year, not twelve. A tool that only understands "the 1st of the month" gets these wrong every time.
If a tool stores a single "arrears" figure that someone edits by hand, it will be wrong within a quarter. The number has to be derived from the schedule and the payments, every time you look. We explain the arithmetic in full in our rent arrears process guide.
Option 1: Client accounting software
Examples: PayProp, and the accounts modules inside lettings CRMs such as Reapit, Alto and Jupix.
If rent lands in your client account, this is where arrears should live. The system reconciles every receipt against a tenancy, pays the landlord, takes your fee and produces the statement. Arrears are a by-product of work it is already doing.
Good at
- One source of truth for money you hold — the figure the landlord sees is the figure in the bank.
- Landlord payouts, fees and statements in the same place.
- Audit trail that suits client money protection rules.
Watch for
- Set-up and cost. Pricing is usually per tenancy or per unit, and onboarding a portfolio is a project, not an afternoon.
- Tenancies you don't collect for. Let-only and rent-to-landlord properties often sit outside the ledger entirely, so arrears on those are invisible.
- Seeing arrears is not acting on them. Check how many clicks it takes to get from "who is late" to "chase this tenant".
Right for: agencies that collect rent on most of their book and already run their accounts in the platform.
Option 2: A spreadsheet
Most small agencies start here, and for good reason: it is free and everyone can use it.
Good at
- Zero cost, zero set-up.
- Fine for a handful of monthly tenancies with the same due date.
Watch for
- Nothing tells you anything. A spreadsheet never emails you when rent goes late. You find out when you open it.
- Rent rises and new tenants. This is where spreadsheets quietly break — someone updates the rent cell and every past month recalculates.
- Weekly rent. The formulas get ugly fast, and nobody checks them.
- No record of who changed what. When a landlord disputes a figure, you cannot show how you arrived at it.
Right for: under ten tenancies, all monthly, with one person who owns the sheet. Past that, see compliance software vs spreadsheets — the same failure modes apply to rent.
Option 3: A rent-status tool
Example: Proplio.
A rent-status tool answers the arrears question without taking on accounting. You tell it the rent, the frequency and when it is due; you tell it what came in; it works out who is paid up, who is late and who is in arrears.
How Proplio does it
- Set rent once per property — monthly on a due day, or weekly / four-weekly from a date. Nothing is owed the moment you switch it on; tracking starts from the next due date.
- Record payments three ways: one click from the property, or upload your bank's CSV export and Proplio matches each credit by postcode, then address, then tenant name, then exact amount. Anything ambiguous is left for you to pick — it never guesses. Re-uploading the same export does nothing twice.
- Arrears are derived, never typed. Paid up is green. Unpaid is amber "Late". Fourteen days late, or more than one period owed, is red "Arrears". Rent rises apply from the next due date; a new tenancy starts from nothing.
- It tells you. One email the day after a property goes late, again at fourteen days, then every fortnight — and a "Late rent" list on the dashboard every morning.
- Chase in one click. Emails the tenant from your agency, replies come to you, and the chase is logged against the property.
- Optional reminder before rent is due — a polite email to the tenant three days ahead. Off by default; you switch it on.
- Landlord statements per month, tax year or date range, with rent due against received and your management fee taken off if you set one.
Watch for
- It is not accounting. Proplio does not hold client money, pay landlords or reconcile a client account. If you need that, you need Option 1.
- Statement uploads are manual. You export from your bank and drop the file in. It takes a minute, but someone has to do it.
Pricing: £49 a month or £490 a year, flat — unlimited properties and users, with compliance tracking and repairs in the same subscription. See pricing.
Right for: agencies where rent goes to landlords, mixed books, and any agency that wants arrears visible in the morning without an accounting migration.
Option 4: Your CRM's rent fields without the accounts module
Many lettings CRMs let you record a rent amount and a status without running client accounting. Treat this with care: check whether the status is calculated from payments or just a dropdown someone sets. A dropdown is a spreadsheet with a login.
How to choose in ten minutes
Ask any vendor these five questions, in this order:
- 1If I raise the rent today, does last month's figure change? It must not.
- 2When I add a new tenant, where does their balance start? At zero.
- 3Is rent due today shown as late? It should not be.
- 4How do payments get in — and what happens to one you can't match? It should wait for you, not guess.
- 5Who tells me when something goes late? If the answer is "you check the report", you will check it less than you think.
Anything that fails the first two will produce figures you cannot defend in front of a landlord — or, worse, in a Section 8 claim, where Ground 8 needs the arrears proven at service and again at the hearing.
Key takeaways
- Choose by how rent moves: through your client account → client accounting; straight to landlords → a rent-status tool.
- Arrears are derived from what was due and what was paid. A figure someone types in is a figure that will drift.
- Test every tool on rent rises, new tenants and rent due today before you trust its numbers.
- Remind before, chase after — and the first chase should come from a person.
This article is general guidance for letting agents in England as of September 2026. Product details for other vendors are summarised from their public materials and change over time; confirm with each vendor before you buy. Proplio is our product.