A receipt app for landlords.

Why one folder for everything stops working at two properties

With one let, a shoebox is survivable. The costs are all the same property's, so the only work in January is adding them up. At two, every receipt carries a second fact that nothing on the paper records: which property it belongs to. A £68 plumber's invoice is not ambiguous in the week it happens and is completely ambiguous in March.

That second fact has to be captured at the same moment as the receipt, or it has to be reconstructed later from memory. Reconstruction is where landlords lose money: costs that were real get dropped because nobody could say with confidence where they belonged.

What a landlord's records actually have to show

HMRC does not ask for a particular filing system. It asks that the figures on your return be supported by records that can be checked. For property income that means, per cost: who you paid, when, how much, what it was for, and — because you report a property business, not a pile of houses — enough detail to tie it to the letting it relates to.

Rent received, agent statements, ground rent and service charges, insurance, repairs, safety certificates, replacement furnishings and mortgage interest all belong in that record. Keep them well past the filing date — for a property business that is generally at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for that tax year. The authoritative source is HMRC's own guidance on renting out a property — read it for your own situation rather than trusting any app, including this one.

It is also worth checking whether Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to you yet. It phases in by income level, and where it applies it turns record-keeping from an annual scramble into a quarterly one — which rewards capturing at source even more.

Why a bank feed is not the same as a receipt

Most expense apps aimed at landlords open by asking for a bank login. A bank feed is genuinely useful for one thing — it proves money moved — and useless for the two things that matter here. It does not know what was bought, and it certainly does not know which property it was for.

"£214.90, B&Q" is a line on a statement. Whether that was a replacement boiler part for flat 2 or paint for your own kitchen is on the receipt, not in the feed. So the receipt is the record, and a bank connection is an extra set of credentials handed over for a benefit you did not need.

A method that survives a real letting year

Every system that fails, fails for the same reason: it asks you to do the admin later. The one that works has four properties.

• Photograph at the door, not at the desk. The plumber hands you the invoice; you photograph it before you have left the flat, while you still know which flat it is.
• Tag the property in the same action. One tap, at capture. Never a separate sorting session.
• Keep the line items, not just the total. "£214.90" tells you nothing in eleven months; the itemised list is what lets you or your accountant call a cost a repair rather than guess.
• Set the year boundary correctly. The UK tax year starts 6 April. A tool that assumes January will hand you the wrong twelve months.

How Receiply does it

Receiply is built around that capture loop. You photograph the receipt; the text is read on your device, and only that extracted text is sent to be interpreted into a merchant, date, total, category and every line item with quantities. The photo itself never leaves your phone, and there is no bank login — Receiply has no connection to your bank and never asks for one.

For a landlord, four things carry the weight:

• Projects group receipts by property. One project per flat or house, tagged at capture, and the year's costs for that address stay together on their own.
• The accountant pack exports a PDF with every receipt photo appended, broken down by project — so the handover for a three-property portfolio is three PDFs, not a carrier bag.
• The financial year setting has a 6 April preset, so exported periods line up with the UK tax year instead of the calendar.
• Scheduled payments cover the costs that arrive on their own — ground rent, service charge, the insurance renewal — with a reminder before they land rather than after.

The Vault makes all of it searchable by merchant, category and date range, with a filter for entries that are missing a photo — useful in March, when the gap you are looking for is the receipt you never took. The free plan covers 10 scans a month and unlimited manual entries; Projects, reports and the accountant pack are part of Pro. What is stored and where is written in plain English on the privacy page.

One thing Receiply deliberately does not do: it does not file your return, work out your tax, or decide what is allowable. Repairs versus improvements, and how the finance-cost rules land on your own figures, are judgement calls. Receiply gets the evidence in order; the judgement stays with you and your accountant.

If you are filing for yourself as well as letting, the companion guide on keeping receipts for Self Assessment covers the dates and retention periods in more detail.

01

How should a landlord keep receipts for more than one property?

Tag each cost to its property at the moment you record it, not at the end of the year. Then one property's costs for a date range can be pulled without sorting anything by hand.

02

How long do landlords need to keep property records?

Well past the filing date — for a property business that is generally at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for that tax year. Check GOV.UK for the period that applies to your own letting.

03

Do I need a receipt app that connects to my bank account?

No. A feed shows that money left an account; it does not show what was bought or which property it was for. Receiply has no bank connection at all and never asks for one — it reads the receipt instead.

04

Does Receiply work out what a landlord can claim?

No. It organises receipts and expenses by property so the figures are ready. It does not file returns, calculate tax, or decide what is allowable.