Tracking arrears sounds simple — who's behind, by how much — until you actually try to do it across a handful of tenancies with different rents, different due days and different payment habits. A single 'amount owed' figure hides more than it reveals. This is how to track arrears in a way that's actually useful for a small self-managing landlord.
Start from the oldest unpaid month, not the total
The most useful arrears number isn't the pound figure — it's the date. If a tenant's oldest unpaid month is March and we're now in June, you have a real problem regardless of the amount. If it's just this month and they always pay on the 5th, you don't. The oldest unpaid month tells you how long the slip has been going on, which is what matters.
Translate the balance into 'months behind'
A £2,400 arrears figure means very different things on a £600 room and a £1,800 family let. Divide the balance by the monthly rent and you get equivalent months behind — a number you can compare across the whole portfolio at a glance. One tenant 0.4 months behind is noise; one tenant 2.1 months behind is the call you should be making today.
Use aging buckets to triage
Group every overdue charge into simple buckets: 1–30 days late, 31–60, 61–90, 90+. Across a small portfolio this gives you an instant triage view. Anything in 90+ is escalating; anything in 1–30 is usually just timing. You don't need fancy reporting — you need a clear list, sorted by how old the oldest unpaid month is.
Allocate payments to the oldest charge first
When a payment lands, allocate it against the oldest unpaid month before anything else. This is how arrears naturally clear: a tenant who's two months behind and pays one month's rent is now one month behind, not 'one month late on this month and still two months late on the old ones'. Allocating oldest-first keeps the ledger honest and the arrears number meaningful.
That's the whole job: oldest unpaid month, equivalent months behind, simple aging buckets, oldest-first allocation. No enterprise software required. Nestria's arrears view is built around exactly this — see the live arrears across all your tenancies on one screen, ordered by the ones that need attention first.
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