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The Owner Finance Layer for Landlords & Their CAs

Month-end used to eat her whole weekend. Now 18 flats close in four minutes — and it caught a TDS gap she'd have missed.

This is the owner finance layer — a per-property P&L that closes in minutes, exports to Tally in one click, and reconciles §194-I TDS against Form 26AS with GST handled on commercial rent. The finance and tax layer, not the lead layer and not the lease layer.

For landlords, owners & the CAs who serve them · per-property P&L → Tally → 26AS reconciliation · §24 · §194-I/IB · GST 18% on commercial.

See a month-end close →
In plain English

Property accounting & finance closes every property's month-end profit-and-loss and keeps it reconciled with Indian tax. You record rent, maintenance, repairs and property tax through the month; at close, each property's P&L down to net operating income is produced, §194-I TDS is reconciled against Form 26AS, GST on commercial rent is handled, and the books export to Tally in one click. This is the owner finance layer. The security-deposit ledger and lease lifecycle (e-stamp, renewal, escalation) are the separate tenant-lease-management solution; building-compliance docs are document-management; per-sqft CAM is commercial-property-management; portfolio rollup across many properties is multi-office management.

Per property
P&L down to NOI
not one portfolio blob
One-click Tally
XML export · your CA
re-keys nothing
vs Form 26AS
§194-I/IB TDS reconciled
mismatch flagged early
GST 18%
on commercial rent
GSTR-1/3B summaries
A real month-end · Chennai landlord · 18 flats, 3 buildings · March 2026

One property's P&L, closed — and the ₹2,400 the system caught.

Smt. Ramaswamy owns 18 flats across three buildings in T. Nagar, mostly residential with two small retail units. Her March month-end close ran from 09:00 to 09:04 — four minutes. Here's the P&L for one building, and the TDS mismatch the reconciliation flagged before it became a filing headache.

Per-property P&L · Building 1 · March 2026 · closed 09:04 Tally-ready
LineAmount (₹)
Rent received2,87,400
Less: Maintenance(38,200)
Less: Repairs(14,200)
Less: Property tax(4,800)
Less: Depreciation (Sch. II basis)(1,000)
Net operating income2,29,200
⚠ Form 26AS reconciliation — Tenant C₹2,400 §194-I mismatch
The four minutes is the headline; the amber line is the real value. The reconciliation spotted that Tenant C's §194-I TDS credit in Form 26AS was ₹2,400 short of what the lease implied — the kind of gap that surfaces at filing, in July, when it's a problem. Caught in March, it's a phone call. Note: §24 House Property treatment (30% standard deduction + loan interest) is applied on the owner statement, not shown in this operating view.
Where landlord finances quietly go wrong

Four ways a property owner's books cost them at filing.

One pile for every property

Rent and expenses across buildings land in one spreadsheet, so the owner can't see which property actually makes money and which quietly loses it. The portfolio looks fine while one building bleeds.

The TDS gap found in July

A tenant deducted §194-I TDS but the credit never reflected in Form 26AS. Nobody notices until the return is being filed, when fixing it means chasing a tenant about a deduction from eight months ago.

Re-keying the whole year for the CA

The owner keeps records one way, the CA needs Tally. So at year-end someone re-types twelve months of vouchers, introducing errors and burning days that a one-click export would have saved.

Commercial and residential mixed

GST-bearing commercial rent gets blended with GST-free residential income in one figure, so the GST position is a guess and GSTR filing becomes a reconstruction exercise every quarter.

How the close loop runs

From a month of rent to a reconciled, tax-ready P&L.

1

Let income and expenses flow in

Rent received, maintenance, repairs and property tax for each property are recorded through the month as they happen, tagged to the right building and unit, so nothing has to be reconstructed at month-end.

2

Generate the per-property P&L

At close, each property's profit and loss is produced in one view — rent income less maintenance, repairs, property tax and depreciation, down to net operating income — per property, not one undifferentiated pile across the portfolio.

3

Reconcile TDS against Form 26AS

§194-I TDS deducted by tenants (10% on building rent, 2% on plant and machinery) and §194-IB for personal landlords is reconciled against Form 26AS, so a mismatch on any one tenant is flagged before it becomes a filing problem.

4

Handle GST on commercial rent

For commercial units above the GST threshold, 18% GST is applied and GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B summaries are produced, with input-tax-credit visibility for the tenant — kept distinct from residential income that carries no GST.

5

Export to Tally, issue owner statements

The closed books export to Tally in one click as XML, so a CA picks them up without re-keying, and owner-wise monthly statements (with NRI and HNI variants carrying §195 and FEMA cues) go out — the month is closed and tax-ready.

The Indian tax frame this runs inside

A P&L that lines up with what your CA will file.

Income Tax §24 + §194-I / §194-IB

§24 House Property treatment (30% standard deduction + home-loan interest) on owner statements; §194-I TDS (10% building / 2% plant & machinery) and §194-IB (5% personal landlord) reconciled against Form 26AS.

CGST Act 2017 — GST on commercial rent

18% GST on commercial rental income above the threshold (₹20L most states, ₹10L special-category), with GSTR-1/3B summaries and tenant ITC visibility. Residential rent kept GST-free and separate.

Companies Act Schedule II + §195/FEMA

Depreciation on the Schedule II useful-life basis where the owner accounts for it; NRI owner statements carry §195 TDS and FEMA repatriation cues for rent flowing to an NRO account.

Framework references: Income Tax Act §24 House Property, §194-I (10%/2%), §194-IB (5%), §195 (non-resident TDS); CGST Act 2017 18% on commercial rent (threshold ₹20L / ₹10L special states); Companies Act 2013 Schedule II building useful life; FEMA NRO/NRE repatriation; Form 26AS reconciliation; IT Act 2000 §65B. EstateDeck records and reports, routes payments through RBI-authorised PSPs, and never holds owner funds. Not tax advice — figures are illustrative; consult your CA.

One property stack · this is the finance layer

Finance ≠ lease ≠ compliance docs.
This page owns the owner's P&L and tax; the deposit ledger and docs live elsewhere.

EstateDeck keeps finance, lease lifecycle, and compliance documents as separate solution pages on purpose, so each ranks for its own job. This is the finance and tax layer — and the security-deposit ledger sits with the lease it belongs to, not here.

You are here · Finance

Accounting & Finance

Per-property P&L, Tally export, §194-I/GST reconciliation, owner statements

Lease layer

Tenant & Lease

e-Stamp, renewal, escalation clauses, security-deposit ledger

Tenant & Lease →
Compliance layer

Compliance Docs

OC, Fire NOC, structural audit, bye-laws, expiry tracking

Compliance Docs →

This page owns

  • The per-property P&L close down to net operating income.
  • One-click Tally XML export for the owner's CA.
  • §194-I / §194-IB TDS reconciliation against Form 26AS.
  • GST 18% on commercial rent + GSTR-1/3B summaries.
  • §24 treatment, depreciation, and owner-wise statements (NRI/HNI with §195/FEMA cues).

This page defers to

  • The security-deposit ledger + lease lifecycle (e-stamp, renewal, escalation clauses) — lives in Tenant & Lease Management. The deposit sits with its lease, not in the finance books.
  • Building-compliance documents (OC, Fire NOC, structural audit, bye-laws, expiry) — lives in Document Management & Compliance.
  • Per-sqft CAM reconciliation for offices/IT parks/malls — lives in Commercial Property Management (which defers the resulting P&L and §194-I back here).
  • Portfolio rollup across many properties / cities — lives in Multi-Office Management. This page is the per-property finance view.
Three finance realities for Indian owners

The same finance layer, three kinds of owner.

The close is the same shape; the tax cues and the statement variant change with the owner.

Resident landlord

A dozen-odd flats, mixed use

An owner with residential flats and a couple of retail units closes each property's P&L monthly, keeps GST-bearing commercial rent separate from residential, and hands clean Tally XML to a CA — month-end in minutes, not a weekend.

NRI owner

Rent flowing to an NRO account

An NRI landlord gets statements carrying §195 and FEMA repatriation cues, with §194-I TDS reconciled against Form 26AS — so the position is clear to both the owner abroad and their CA in India at filing time.

Owner + CA together

Clean handoff, no re-keying

The owner closes and reviews in EstateDeck; the CA receives one-click Tally XML and a TDS/GST position already reconciled. The relationship stops being a year-end re-typing exercise and becomes a review.

From the field

T. Nagar, Chennai · 18 flats across three buildings · resident landlord.

"I own eighteen flats across three buildings — mostly families, two small shops. For years month-end meant a Sunday with a calculator and a shoebox of receipts, and I still never quite trusted the numbers. The first month I closed in EstateDeck it took about four minutes per building, and I could finally see each building's profit on its own instead of one big confusing total. But the moment I became a believer was a small amber line: it told me a tenant's TDS credit in my 26AS was two thousand four hundred rupees short of what it should be. In the old days I'd have found that in July with my CA, in a panic. I found it in March, made one phone call, and it was sorted. My accountant now just gets the Tally file — no more re-typing my whole year. I'll say plainly, it doesn't touch my money; the rent comes to my own account, this just keeps the books honest and the tax straight."
Smt. Lakshmi Ramaswamy Resident landlord · 18 flats / 3 buildings (residential + 2 retail) · T. Nagar, Chennai-600017, Tamil Nadu
Per-property P&L close · one-click Tally XML · §194-I TDS reconciled against Form 26AS · §24 House Property · GST 18% on the two retail units
Quick answers

Property accounting, asked and answered.

What every landlord, owner, and CA asks before they change how the books are kept.

What does property accounting and finance software do?
It closes every property's month-end profit-and-loss and keeps it reconciled with Indian tax. You record rent, maintenance, repairs and property tax through the month; at close, each property's P&L down to net operating income is produced, §194-I TDS is reconciled against Form 26AS, GST on commercial rent is handled, and the books export to Tally in one click. This is the owner finance layer. The security-deposit ledger and lease lifecycle are a separate tenant-lease-management solution; building-compliance documents are a separate document-management solution.
How is this different from the tenant & lease management solution?
They are different layers. This page is the finance and tax layer — per-property P&L, Tally export, TDS and GST reconciliation, owner statements. The tenant-lease-management solution is the lease lifecycle layer — e-stamped agreements, renewal alerts, escalation clauses, and the security-deposit ledger. The security deposit specifically lives there, with the lease it belongs to, not here. This page accounts for rent income and the tax on it; the lease page manages the agreement and the deposit under it.
Does it export to Tally?
Yes — one-click Tally XML export is core to this page. The closed per-property books export as Tally-compatible XML so a chartered accountant picks them up without re-keying a single voucher. This is built for how Indian landlords and their CAs actually work: the owner closes and reviews in EstateDeck, the CA receives clean Tally data for filing. It removes the month-end re-entry that otherwise sits between an owner's records and their accountant.
How does it handle §194-I TDS reconciliation?
Tenants deducting TDS on rent under §194-I (10% on building rent above the annual threshold, 2% on plant and machinery) have those deductions reconciled against Form 26AS, so a mismatch on any one tenant is surfaced rather than discovered at filing. §194-IB (5% for personal landlords on rent above the monthly threshold) is handled the same way. The point is to catch a TDS gap — say a tenant who deducted but the credit isn't reflecting — while there's still time to fix it.
Does it handle GST on commercial rent?
Yes. Commercial rental income above the GST threshold (₹20 lakh in most states, ₹10 lakh in special-category states) attracts 18% GST. The platform applies it, produces GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B summaries, and keeps input-tax-credit visibility for the commercial tenant. Residential rent, which carries no GST, is kept cleanly separate from commercial in the books, so the owner isn't mixing taxable and non-taxable income in one figure.
What about Section 24 House Property and depreciation?
Owner statements reflect Income Tax §24 House Property treatment — the 30% standard deduction and home-loan interest — so the let-out income is presented the way it will actually be assessed. Depreciation is applied per holder type, using the Companies Act Schedule II useful-life basis for buildings where the owner accounts for it. The aim is that the P&L an owner sees lines up with the tax position their CA will file, rather than being a raw cash figure that needs reworking.
Does it work for NRI owners?
Yes. Owner-wise monthly statements come in NRI and HNI variants that carry §195 (TDS on payments to non-residents) and FEMA repatriation cues, which matter for an NRI landlord whose rent flows to an NRO account. The statement is built so an NRI owner and their CA can see the position clearly. Cross-property portfolio rollup for an owner with many properties across cities is the separate multi-office-management solution; this page is the per-property finance view.
Does EstateDeck hold or process my rent money?
No. EstateDeck records and reports the finances; it does not hold an owner's funds and is not itself a payment aggregator. Where rent is collected online, it routes through RBI-authorised payment service providers, and the money settles to the owner's own account. This page is the accounting and tax layer — what the money was, how it nets out per property, and how it reconciles with Form 26AS and GST — not a wallet that the funds pass through.
Where do compliance documents and CAM charges fit in?
On separate pages. Building-compliance documents — OC, Fire NOC, structural audit, bye-laws and their expiry tracking — are the document-management-compliance solution, not this finance page. Per-square-foot CAM (Common Area Maintenance) reconciliation for offices, IT parks and malls is the commercial-property-management solution, which defers the resulting per-property P&L and §194-I treatment back here. This page owns the owner's P&L and tax; those pages own the documents and the CAM mechanics respectively.

Stop losing your weekend to month-end.
Close per property, reconcile the tax, hand your CA clean Tally.

We'll show you a per-property P&L close, the §194-I reconciliation against Form 26AS, GST on commercial rent, and one-click Tally export — in a demo on your own buildings. Not tax advice; bring your CA.

Book the Finance Demo →