Rent Schedules & Rent Collection

Rent Collection is where you set up what each tenant owes and when, record the money that comes in, and follow up rent that’s late.

For step-by-step instructions, see Rent Collection: how-to. For problems, see Rent Collection: troubleshooting.

Why you’d come here

You want to…	Usually you start from	Go to
See who owes rent today or this week	Menu > Rent Collection (it opens on overdue rent)	The organisation panel
Record rent a tenant has paid by bank transfer, cash or another way	The tenancy’s Rent Collection panel, or a Rent Payment Due Action	Log a payment
Deal with an Action saying a tenant’s rent is due	Your Actions list (the Action has the payment form built in)	Log a payment
Chase late rent and record why it’s late	The organisation panel’s overdue list	Chase overdue rent
Answer a tenant’s or owner’s question about what’s been paid or owed	The tenancy’s panel, or a statement	Produce a rent statement
Sort out a payment that isn’t linked to any rent	The dashboard’s Payments tile (Unassigned), or the red warning on the panel	Link an unassigned payment
Set up rent for a tenancy, or change the rent day, amount or grace period	The tenancy’s panel: Edit Schedule or Rent	Set up or edit a rent schedule
Add a one-off charge (a key fob, a cleaning fee) or arrears	The tenancy’s panel: Money due	Add money due
Give money back, waive rent, or undo something already settled to the owner	The rent record’s View	Refund, credit or reverse a charge
Bring in an existing tenant’s history, or import payments in bulk	Edit Schedule, or Import CSV	Set up an existing tenant; Import from a spreadsheet
Check nothing has been missed	Missing rent charges on the organisation panel	Fix missing rent charges

Which panel to use:

Panel	Use it when you’re thinking about
Organisation (Menu > Rent Collection)	Everyone: what’s overdue, due today, this month and next; chasing; statements and imports across properties
Tenancy (a room page > Menu > Rent Collection)	One tenant: their schedule, payments, charges and full rent account

How it works

• The rent schedule says what rent is due and when. COHO turns it into rent records, one per period.
• Payments are recorded against those records, by you, by an import, through the Transactions panel (open banking), or through GoCardless.
• Each record’s status shows whether it’s upcoming, due, overdue or paid, taking your grace period into account.
• Other money a tenant owes (fees, deposits, arrears) is added as money due, and appears alongside the rent.

Note

COHO can mark rent as paid automatically when bank transactions come into the Transactions panel and a rent match rule matches them to rent, or when rent is collected through GoCardless. Other payments are recorded when you log or import them. COHO doesn’t notify the tenant when a payment is recorded.

Where to find it

Level	Where	Shows
Organisation	Dashboard: Menu > Rent Collection	Rent across every property
Tenancy	A property > a room > Menu > Rent Collection	One tenancy’s rent account

The organisation panel appears once Rent Collection is switched on for at least one property. The tenancy panel appears when the property has Rent Collection switched on, and the room is active with a current tenancy. If a room’s rent is managed elsewhere, its panel says “Rent collection and finance management for this room is handled outside of COHO.”

What you see

The organisation panel

On screen	What it does
Overdue, Due today, This month, Next month	Summary cards. Click one to show only that rent; click again to clear. The panel opens on Overdue. The totals update when you reload the page
Property / Tenancy / No Grouping	Totals per property (with 30 Days, 60 Days, 90 Days, More and Total columns showing how long rent has been owed), totals per tenancy, or every record on its own row. Goes back to Property on reload
Include rent records from	Date range: Last week, Month to date, Last month, Last 3 months, or Custom. Starts on yesterday
All tenancies	Past, Active, Future or Prospective tenancies
Include all previous overdue rent	On by default: older unpaid rent stays in the list
Include only rent & additional charges	On by default. Untick to choose other money types, such as deposits
All properties	Chosen properties only
Status, Payment reference / Tenant, Any tags	No Grouping view only
View	Opens a rent record with its actions
“You have N tenancies with unassigned payments”	Payments not linked to any rent; View lists them
Log payment, Export (CSV), Generate Rent Statement, Import CSV	See below
Missing rent charges	Tenancies with a gap in their rent records
Settings cog	Rent Collection Settings (GoCardless)

The tenancy panel

On screen	What it does
Summary	For example “Rent is to be paid by Bank transfer on the 1st of each month with the payment reference Harv1”, plus saved payment instructions
Automatic generation line	Whether COHO is adding rent automatically for this tenancy
Overdue, Next due, Last payment, % paid on time	Tiles. % paid on time is green at 100%, amber between 50% and 100%, red at 50% or less
The rent book	Every record, charge and payment: Date, Type, Status, Amount, Running Balance, View
Show deleted/reversed rent records, Show payments, Show rent due items	What the rent book includes
Edit Schedule, Log payment, Rent credit, Money due, Mark all paid, Statement, Rent, Reassociate, Import CSV	See below
Credit Control Notes, Audit log, GoCardless	Notes, a history of changes, and the GoCardless section if used
Settings cog	The property’s Rent Collection settings, including the rent-due reminder action

Rent schedules

The schedule is set up in onboarding’s contract step, or on the tenancy panel (Create when there isn’t one, otherwise Edit Schedule).

Field	What it does
Which day of the month?	Rent day for monthly tenancies (First day to 30th, or Last day of month). Weekly and fortnightly tenancies use a day of the week; four-weekly, quarterly and annual ones use the date the cycle starts
Payment method?	Unknown, Bank transfer, Cash, Card payment, Cheque, Direct debit, Housing Benefit (Direct), Standing order or Other
Payments will be overdue immediately – Change	Payment term days: a grace period. “Payments will not be overdue/late until this many days have passed after the due date.” Default 0
Payment details	Saved payment instructions. The tenant sees them on their own panel
Payment reference	What the tenant should pay with. Generate tenancy ref creates one
Rent IS / IS NOT automatically generated in a periodic tenancy	Whether COHO keeps adding rent once the tenancy is periodic
Future rent only	Create rent from today onwards (shown when the tenancy started in the past)
Pro-rata calculation	For part months: Monthly (rent divided by days in that month) or Annually (rent × 12 ÷ 365)
The rent record list	Add rent record, edit or delete lines, Regenerate (replaces the list, including lines you added), Clear, Copy rent schedule to others

Frequencies come from the tenancy: Monthly, Weekly, Fortnightly, Four Weekly, Quarterly, Annually or Term. Term tenancies aren’t generated automatically.

Tenants already in place: use Future rent only (add any arrears with Money due > Arrears), or generate the full history from the start date and use Mark all paid or log past payments.

Payments

• Log payment records money received: amount, date, method and notes. COHO links it to the oldest unpaid amounts first (“We’ve allocated this payment automatically to the oldest amount due…”), and you can change which charges it covers.
• If the payment is later than a charge’s due date, you can tick Override ‘Paid Late’ status to show as paid on time. For owner-managed properties you can mark a payment as paid directly to the owner.
• Mark £X paid on time (on a rent record) records the full amount, dated on the due date. Use Log payment for part or late payments so they show correctly.
• Mark all paid marks all overdue rent on the tenancy as paid on time, after you confirm.
• Unassigned payments are payments not linked to any rent. The dashboard’s Payments tile counts them (Unassigned), and the organisation panel lists them.
• Reassociate removes every link between payments and rent on a tenancy and re-matches each payment to the oldest rent. It can’t be undone, and isn’t available once the tenancy has owner settlements.

Money due, credits, refunds and reversals

Option	Use it for
Money due > Rent	Extra rent: amount, VAT, date due
Money due > Tenant costs	Other charges (category, description, amount, VAT, Due with next rent)
Money due > Tenant money	A deposit, holding deposit or rent in advance
Money due > Arrears	Past arrears in one amount
Rent	Changes the rent from a date (Rent change date, Rent, VAT applicable)
Rent credit	Reduces what’s owed without money changing hands (waived rent, goodwill). Doesn’t appear on owner settlements
Refund	Gives money back on a charge paid in full, before it’s on an owner settlement. Needs a refund date and reason
Reverse	For a charge already on an owner settlement: releases its payments and creates reversal entries

A single rent record

View opens a record’s details and actions: Mark £X paid on time, Log payment, Send a Reminder, Mark overdue / Add overdue history, Set as bad Debt / Unset as Bad Debt, Override Paid Late, Refund / Cancel Refund, Reverse, Dissociate (unlink a payment), Edit, delete, Copy to new, tags, and Item notes / Credit control notes.

• Edit and delete aren’t available for charges collected through GoCardless (unless the GoCardless payment failed).
• Delete is only offered for charges not on an owner settlement, and only for charges that were never really due.

Chasing late rent

• Mark overdue records that rent is late, with a Missed payment reason: Reason not known, Forgotten, Unable to afford, Refusal to pay, Paid with incorrect reference, Incorrect amount paid, Claims paid correctly, or Other. Each follow-up adds to the record’s overdue history.
• Send a Reminder emails the lead tenant about one charge: before it’s due (“Reminder: Rent of … due on …”), when it’s due, or when it’s overdue (“Important: Overdue rent of …”). It isn’t available for tenancies with more than one tenant, so use Credit Control for those.
• Set as bad Debt for rent you don’t expect to recover. Bad debt can be left out of statements.

Missing rent charges

Lists tenancies that already have rent records but are missing one for a period. Common causes: automatic generation is off, a record was deleted, or the tenancy dates changed. It covers three months back to one month ahead, monthly, by default (Weekly is also available). Include mismatched rent amounts also flags periods where the rent recorded is less than the tenancy’s rent. Ignore hides a gap you know is fine; it doesn’t create a charge.

Statements, export and import

• Generate Rent Statement:
  • choose Properties, Rooms, Money types and From/To dates;
  • options: Include prepayments (off), Include bad debt (on), Show past payments for rent paid in this period (on; untick it to fold them into an opening balance) and Current tenancy only (on);
  • click Generate CSV.
• Statement on a tenancy panel does the same for one tenancy.
• Export (CSV) downloads the list you’re looking at. Grouped by property, it includes the property owner and the 30/60/90/90+ day overdue columns.
• Import CSV adds payments and charges in bulk from .csv, .xls or .xlsx:
  • Type: payment, credit, rent, other, deposit or arrears;
  • PaymentMethod: cash, card, other, direct debit, bank transfer, standing order, cheque or housing_benefit;
  • Dates: yyyy/MM/dd or yyyy-MM-dd;
  • Amounts: positive numbers only.
  • Associate all unassigned payments (on by default) links imported payments to rent.

Statuses

Status	Meaning
Upcoming	Due in the future
Due	The due date has passed, but it’s still within the grace period
Overdue?	Past the grace period and nothing paid, but not yet confirmed as overdue. Tenants see this as Due. Becomes Overdue when you click Mark overdue or send an overdue reminder
Overdue	Past the grace period, not fully paid, and confirmed
Part-Paid	Some paid, some still owed
Paid	Paid in full by the due date plus the grace period, or marked as on time
Paid late	Paid in full after the due date plus the grace period
Bad Debt	Written off
Refunded / Part Refunded	Money given back
Kept, Redirected	A holding deposit kept, or moved to other rent
Reversed	Undone after an owner settlement

% paid on time counts payments against the due date only, ignoring the grace period. It leaves out refunded, bad debt, reversed and pre-move-in records.

Settings

Where	Setting
Organisation panel, settings cog	Rent Collection Settings: GoCardless
Tenancy panel, settings cog	The property’s Rent Collection service, including Remind me to check tenant rent payments by creating an action when their rent becomes due. Save for this property, or tick Save for all properties (or Save for all properties in this building)
Edit Schedule	Rent day, payment method, grace period, payment details and reference, automatic generation
Credit Control (its own area)	Chasing arrears step by step, including joint tenancies

Who can use it

To	You need
See rent collection	View permission for Rent Collection
Log payments, add charges, mark paid or overdue, refund, reverse, set bad debt, send reminders, import, edit schedules	Edit permission for Rent Collection
Generate a schedule	Edit permission for Rent Collection, or for rent schedules
See Credit Control Notes	View permission for Credit Control
Manage GoCardless only	Integrations (the panel says “You do not have access to rent collection, but you can still manage your GoCardless connection via settings (cog icon).”)

Rules and automatic behaviour

Rent generation

• COHO adds rent records automatically, up to two months ahead, for active tenancies with automatic generation on.
• During a fixed term, rent comes from the schedule set up at the start. COHO only extends it once the tenancy is periodic (after the fixed term ends, or from the start for periodic tenancies).
• It stops at the move-out date, and at a pending rent change until that change applies.
• New rent records aren’t created instantly; they’re added in the background.

Money rules

• Payments: amounts can’t be negative, and a payment can’t be linked to more than is owed on a charge.
• Editing an amount: it can’t go below what’s already been paid against it.
• Deleting a charge: not possible while payments are linked to it. A holding deposit must be kept, returned or refunded before its record can be removed.
• Refunds: only for charges paid in full, and not bad debt.
• Bad debt: fully paid charges can’t be marked as bad debt.

Reminders

• Send a Reminder: emails the lead tenant only (SMS isn’t available yet).
  • One upcoming-rent reminder per charge, and at most one overdue reminder every 24 hours.
  • Not available on tenancies with several tenants; use Credit Control.
• Rent Payment Due Action: with the property’s reminder switch on, COHO creates an Action for each unpaid rent charge from its due date, for up to 28 days, for active tenancies. The Action closes itself when the rent is paid.

What COHO doesn’t do

• mark rent as paid on its own, unless a rent match rule matches a bank transaction in Transactions, or the rent is collected through GoCardless;
• tell the tenant when you log a payment, refund or write off rent;
• notify the property owner about rent collection.

Related guides

• Rent Collection: how-to and Rent Collection: troubleshooting
• Credit Control, Transactions, Finances, Deposits, Onboarding, and the GoCardless user guide