The Dashboard answers one question: how is the rental doing right now? Six boxes run across the top:
- Received: What has arrived on this year's stays, occupancy tax and deposits included
- Due: What is still owed on this year's and next year's stays, and last year's too once it's more than just imported history
- Overdue Payments: Payments whose date has passed and that haven't been marked received
- Booked Revenue: Rent and fees on this year's stays, less any commission a platform kept from your payout where Rentalist knows it, plus any security deposit you kept this year and any damage or incident payment you received this year. No tax, and no deposit you give back
- YTD Expenses: What you have spent this year
- Net Income (Booked): Booked Revenue minus YTD Expenses
Below them are your upcoming bookings, the payments due, and any reminders, occupancy tax deadlines among them, if you collect it. Overdue payments show in red. Tax deadlines approaching get flagged. The goal is a quick check-in that shows whether something needs attention today. Tax deadlines and payment reminders reflect the settings for your currently selected property. If you have more than one property, the Dashboard's summary figures combine all of them, and each alert names the property it's about.
The Dashboard is a snapshot of right now. It has no year selector and always shows the current year. Beyond payment and tax-deadline reminders, it surfaces eight gentle nudges:
- An open week that's running late. Flagged when it's closer to arrival than that week normally books, judged against your own history rather than a generic rule. Weeks that always go last-minute stay quiet. Choose View open weeks to see which ones and why, snooze it for a week, or turn it off for that property. Turning it off also stops the Open Week Pricing Urgency chart on Analytics for that property. Turn it back on anytime with Open Week Alerts in Settings → Property.
- Pricing is incomplete. Appears when less than half of this year's season is priced out on the Pricing Calendar, since everything else is built on those rates. Choose Set Prices, snooze it for a week, or ignore it for that property. Turn it back on with the "Remind me to finish pricing my season" checkbox in Settings → Property.
- A tax difference waiting on your decision after a rate change, collect it or absorb it. Choose Review bookings to open Booking Management showing only the stays still waiting for your answer. This one stays until you've answered Collect or Absorb for each stay.
- A stay came in with no occupancy tax. Appears when a stay was imported from a file that stated no occupancy tax for it. Open the stay and enter the occupancy tax that was collected.
- A payout doesn't match what you expected. Appears when an imported payout file says a platform paid you something other than what the booking expected, and you haven't settled it yet. Choose Check your payouts to open the Payouts screen on the year the difference is in. See Payouts.
- Personal-use nights. Appears as your own nights get close to the limit for the year, and again if you go over it. Choose See the details to open the personal-use section at the top of the Tax Summary, or snooze it for a week. The "close to the limit" version can be turned off per property with the "Remind me when I'm close to the personal-use limit" checkbox in Settings → Property. The over-the-limit version can only be snoozed, because it's the one that changes how your whole year is treated.
- A permit or policy is coming up for renewal. Appears starting 30 days before a renewal date you've recorded under Permits & renewals on the Documents screen, and stays until you move the date or remove the item. Choose Review renewals, or snooze it: it comes back at 14 days out, then 7, then about once a week, right through a date that's already passed. There is no Ignore on this one, because an expired permit can take a listing down. See Documents.
- An expense reminder has come due. Choose Go to Expenses or snooze it for a week. It names the expense, and says which year it's filed under when that isn't this year. It never creates an expense and never spends anything; it's a note to yourself.
- Security deposits not marked returned. Appears from December 1 through January 31 when a stay that has ended still has a security deposit you haven't marked returned or recorded as kept. Choose Review deposits to see those stays. For each one you can mark the deposit returned, record the amount you kept, or dismiss the stay from the list. A stay with no security deposit on it, the usual case when a platform holds the deposit, is never listed.
Each one only appears when there's something to say, and none of them blocks anything.
Three of the boxes, Booked Revenue, YTD Expenses, and Net Income (Booked), are year-to-date summaries that update as you add bookings and expenses. They provide a rolling view of your financial performance for the current year.
These are operating figures. The Dashboard always shows YTD Expenses and Net Income as operating figures. The Operating P&L / Cash Flow toggle in Budget & Analytics > Overview changes the Analytics screens and does not change the Dashboard.
This is your rental income before expenses, what guests pay you for the stay itself. Includes:
- Rent from all non-cancelled bookings
- All enabled fees (cleaning, pet, linen, EV charger, and any custom fees you've configured)
- Retained amounts from cancelled bookings
- Security deposits you kept, and damage or incident payments recorded from a payout
- Owner Occupied stays: any rent and fees you recorded on them count here. Your own nights count as occupied nights too. They're left out of the repeat-guest rate and Fill Rate, which measure paying guests, not out of your revenue or your occupancy.
Does not include:
- Occupancy tax: that's money you collect on behalf of the state, tracked separately in Budget & Analytics > Occupancy Tax Payments
- A commission a platform kept from your payout, where Rentalist knows it, that money never reached you
- Security deposits you give back: those are held for the guest and returned, not income
What counts as income on your return depends on your own situation. Rentalist isn't the authority on that, verify with your accountant.
It only counts expenses dated today or earlier, one dated later in the year doesn't show up here until its date arrives.
- Includes operating expenses like cleaning, insurance, repairs, utilities, mortgage interest, and similar day-to-day costs of running the property
- Excludes mortgage principal: that's not an expense, it's building equity in your property
- Excludes capital improvements: a new roof or renovation is an asset purchase that gets depreciated over time, not a running cost
- Excludes auto/travel/mileage: this is a personal tax deduction for trips to the property, not a property operating cost
Occupancy tax payments are not included, those are pass-through collections you send on to your tax office, not business expenses. They are tracked in Budget & Analytics > Occupancy Tax Payments.
Which of these costs is deductible, and how, depends on your own situation. Rentalist isn't the authority on that, verify with your accountant.
Calculated as: Booked Revenue minus YTD Expenses.
- This represents how the rental business is performing, leaving out loan principal and capital improvements
- This is a rolling snapshot: it reflects what has been booked and spent so far
- It is not a forecast or projection: it only includes actual bookings and recorded expenses
- The number is not final until year end, when all bookings are complete and all expenses are logged
The two sides don't cover quite the same stretch of time: Booked Revenue counts a stay dated later in the year the moment it's booked, while YTD Expenses only counts a bill dated today or earlier. So earlier in the year, this figure can look better than the year will end up looking.
Due answers one question: how many dollars are you still waiting on. For each stay, it's what the stay should bring in, rent, fees, occupancy tax, and any security deposit you haven't collected yet, less what's been received. A stay still owed money counts even if you never set up a payment schedule for it. It covers this year's stays and next year's, and last year's too once last year is more than just imported history from before you started using Rentalist. Cancelled stays are left out; money kept on a cancellation is a settlement, not something still owed. Tax you owe the state isn't in this figure either, because that has its own reminder. The subtitle counts how many bookings have a balance, or says "Nothing outstanding" when none do.
These numbers update automatically as you add bookings and log expenses. For detailed breakdowns, tax-organized views, and multi-year comparisons, go to Budget & Analytics.