How to Track Rental Income and Expenses (Without a Spreadsheet)

Most hosts can tell you their nightly rate but not what they actually keep at the end of the month. Spreadsheets fall apart the moment a booking crosses two months, a lease is paid up front, or you start managing an apartment for someone else. Here is how to track income, expenses and real net profit for your short-term rentals, with examples from Hosta.

What you should actually be tracking

Revenue is not income, and income is not profit. To know how your rentals are doing, you need four numbers, not one:

• Past income - what completed bookings have already paid you.
• Upcoming income - a forecast from confirmed future bookings.
• Expenses - everything you spend to run the place, including a lease paid up front.
• Net profit - income minus expenses. The only number that tells you what you keep.

Hosta builds all four from the bookings you already have, so you are not re-typing numbers into a sheet.

Past income: what you have earned

The Stats tab opens on Past income - completed bookings with payments received. You can filter by booking source, by property, and by period (last 7, 30 or 90 days, or a custom range).

For the selected period you see guest payments, number of bookings, total nights, and cleaning split into what guests paid versus what came out of your own funds. Net earnings at the bottom is guest payments minus the cleaning you covered yourself.

Past income for the selected period, filtered by source, property and dates

Upcoming income: your forecast

Scroll down to Upcoming income and Hosta projects what your confirmed future bookings will bring in. You get expected payments, number of bookings, expected nights, and cleaning split the same way as past income.

Two figures matter most here. Expected net earnings is the full amount after cleaning, before any split. Your expected income goes further: it is what is left after cleaning, the owner's share on any co-hosted properties, and the expenses you have logged for the year. That second number is the realistic one.

Upcoming income - expected net earnings and your expected income after splits and expenses

Month by month: income, ADR and occupancy

Below the totals, the monthly breakdown shows each month's income alongside two metrics every host should watch:

• ADR (average daily rate) - the average price of a booked night. A quick read on your pricing.
• Occupancy - the share of available nights that are booked. A quick read on demand.

Bookings that span a month boundary are split by night, so a stay from late June into early July adds the right amount to each month rather than being counted twice. That keeps the monthly figures honest.

Income, ADR and occupancy per month, with a year summary above

Logging expenses (including a seasonal lease)

Open Expenses to add everything you spend to run a rental. Each expense has a category - utilities, repairs, supplies - and you can review them by year, filter by category, and see them grouped by month.

A common case worth calling out: if you lease an apartment for the whole season with one up-front payment, log it as a single Property Lease expense on the day you paid it. Do not try to spread it across months. Your income arrives over the whole season, but the lease was one payment, and splitting it would only distort each month. Logged once, it counts in full against your net profit for the year.

Expenses by year and category - here a $6,500 seasonal lease logged as one entry

Co-hosting: split revenue with the owner

If you manage an apartment for its owner and share the income, you should not count the whole booking as yours. Open the property, turn on Revenue Share, and set your percentage of net earnings - for example 20 percent for you and 80 percent for the owner.

From then on, every income figure that says "your income" reflects only your share for that property, while the full net earnings stay visible for reference. Properties you own yourself are unaffected and count at 100 percent. You can mix owned and managed apartments in one account and the totals stay correct.

Revenue Share - set your cut of net earnings for a managed property

How to set it up in Hosta

Putting it together takes a few minutes once your bookings are in.

Frequently asked questions