A rental statement is the monthly summary your property manager sends showing the rent collected on your behalf, the fees and bills they deducted, and the net amount paid to you. It is the single most important document an agent-managed landlord receives — and at tax time, twelve of them (plus the annual summary) are the backbone of your rental schedule.
Most landlords skim the "amount paid to you" line and file the rest. That habit is where deductions go to die.
What's actually on the statement
The format varies by agency software — PropertyMe, PropertyTree and Console each lay it out differently — but the anatomy is the same:
- Rent collected. What the tenant paid this period, sometimes shown with a "paid to" date. Watch for rent in arrears versus rent in advance — it matters for which financial year the income lands in.
- Management fees. The agent's percentage (typically 5–9% plus GST in 2026), and often a separate "admin" or "statement" fee. All deductible.
- Letting and renewal fees. Charged when a tenancy starts or renews — commonly one to two weeks' rent. Deductible, and commonly missed when they appear only once a year.
- Bills paid on your behalf. Council rates, water, strata levies, repairs and maintenance the agency paid from rent before remitting the balance. Each is a separate deduction category for the ATO — they shouldn't be lumped together as "agent fees."
- Funds held. Some agencies hold a float for upcoming bills. Money held isn't money lost, but it confuses reconciliations if you only track bank deposits.
- GST. Residential rent itself doesn't attract GST, but the agent's fees include it — and the GST-inclusive amount is what you claim.
The annual statement (and its limits)
Around July, your agency issues an EOFY annual statement totalling the year. It's genuinely useful — and genuinely incomplete. The annual statement only knows about money that flowed through the agency. It has no idea about:
- your loan interest (usually the single biggest deduction),
- insurance you pay directly,
- land tax,
- depreciation (Division 40 plant and equipment and Division 43 capital works — often the biggest silent deductions),
- expenses you paid out of pocket — the emergency plumber you rang yourself, the smoke alarm subscription, the trip to Bunnings.
The ATO has flagged that roughly 86% of rental property investors make errors on their returns. A big share of those errors come from treating the agency's annual statement as the whole story.
Where it gets hard: multiple agents
Own two properties with two different agencies and the problem doubles — different statement formats, different fee structures, different annual summaries arriving in different weeks. Own interstate (as roughly half of Australian investors now buy) and you've added different land tax regimes and compliance rules on top.
There is no standard format and no combined view. Your accountant's fix is a request every July: "send me everything." Your fix is usually a weekend and a spreadsheet.
A cleaner way to handle it
This is the workflow PropAlly was built around:
- Forward the statements (or connect your inbox once). The AI reads each agency's format — PropertyMe, PropertyTree, Console and the rest — and files rent, fees and bills against the right property, in the right ATO category.
- Add what the agent can't see. Loan interest, insurance, land tax and out-of-pocket costs sit alongside the agency data, so the picture is complete rather than agency-shaped.
- Let the year build itself. By June you're not reconstructing anything — cash flow per property and across the portfolio has been live all year, and the EOFY pack (including Division 40/43 depreciation) is accountant-ready.
The same applies if some of your properties are self-managed: those just skip step one's agent and ingest your own invoices and receipts instead.
Frequently asked questions
Are property management fees tax deductible? Yes — management fees, letting fees, renewal fees and statement/admin fees on an income-producing rental are all deductible, GST inclusive.
Should I keep the monthly statements if I get an annual one? Yes. The annual statement is a summary; the monthlies are your evidence, and they catch period-boundary issues (June rent paid in July) the summary can hide.
My two agencies categorise things differently — does it matter? For the ATO, yes. "Repairs" and "capital improvements" are different tax treatments, and agencies aren't consistent. Re-categorising into ATO categories — manually or with software — is the step most landlords skip.
What if my agent's statement is wrong? It happens — duplicate fees and miscoded bills are the usual suspects. It's also why an owner-side record matters: you can only dispute what you can see.
PropAlly provides tools and general information, not financial, legal or tax advice. Talk to a registered tax agent about your situation.
