The short answer
Nearly every landlord spreadsheet template that ranks on Google is built for one job: tracking income and expenses for tax and Making Tax Digital. That's useful, but it's a different job from tracking compliance deadlines, gas safety, EICR, EPC, deposit protection and Right to Rent rechecks, where a missed row has legal consequences rather than just a messy set of accounts. A compliance tracker needs its own columns, its own formulas and its own reminders, built around dates rather than money.
Why this is a different spreadsheet from the usual one
A tax spreadsheet answers "what came in and what went out." A compliance tracker needs to answer a harder question for every single property: "what's due, when, and have we got the evidence to prove it was done." Those are different structures. Trying to bolt compliance columns onto an existing income-and-expenses sheet is exactly how dates end up buried in a tab nobody opens unless they're doing the accounts.
What a proper compliance tracker contains
A tracker built for this job, rather than adapted from one built for something else, needs at minimum:
- Property: a clear identifier for each one, consistent across every row.
- Requirement: gas safety, EICR, EPC, deposit protection, Right to Rent recheck, or anything else specific to that tenancy.
- Last done: the date the certificate, check or protection was last completed.
- Next due: calculated from "last done" plus the requirement's cycle, not typed in by hand, so it can't silently drift out of step.
- Days remaining: a live count, so you can see at a glance what's coming up without doing the maths yourself.
- Status: a simple flag, ideally colour-coded, showing on track, due soon, or overdue.
- Evidence link: a link to where the actual certificate or document is stored, not just the date it relates to.
- Notes: anything specific to that property or tenancy worth flagging.
The "next due" and "status" columns are where most home-made trackers fall down, because they're typed by hand rather than calculated, which means they're only ever as accurate as whoever last updated them remembered to be.
Setting the renewal formulas and status flags
The useful part of a tracker like this is a formula on "next due" that adds the requirement's cycle to "last done" automatically (roughly a year for gas safety, roughly five years for EICR unless an earlier report flagged something, whatever cycle applies for EPC and deposit protection on that tenancy), so you only ever update one date per renewal rather than recalculating by hand. Conditional formatting on "status", so a row turns amber a set number of weeks out and red if it's overdue, does the rest of the work of catching your eye before you've had to go looking.
Adding a calendar reminder as a backstop
A spreadsheet, however well built, only works if someone opens it. A calendar reminder set a few weeks ahead of each "next due" date, pulled from the same figures, is a cheap backstop that doesn't rely on anyone remembering to check the sheet that week. It's worth setting these in weeks, not days, so there's genuine time to book a contractor rather than scrambling against a deadline that's already close.
What this template won't do
Being honest about the limits matters as much as the structure. A spreadsheet like this, however well set up, is still one file maintained by one person. It won't alert anyone if that person is away when a reminder lands. It won't stop two people editing it at once and quietly overwriting each other's changes. It won't attach a document automatically; someone still has to upload the certificate and link it. For a handful of properties, those limits are manageable. As the portfolio grows, they start to matter more.
Signs you've outgrown even this
A good compliance tracker, properly built, comfortably covers a handful of properties. The signs it's not enough any more look like: more than one person needs to update it regularly, you've found a date that was wrong or duplicated in the last few months, or you're spending real time each month just checking the sheet rather than being prompted by it. Our full landlord compliance checklist covers what to track in more detail, and the general guide to outgrowing spreadsheets covers the same pattern from a wider angle.
Next step up
If you'd rather not build and maintain this yourself, we can set one up for you, properly structured with working formulas and conditional formatting around your actual portfolio, or move you straight to a lightweight system if a spreadsheet is already clearly not enough. If tax and Making Tax Digital are the bigger headache rather than compliance dates, our guide to Making Tax Digital software is the better starting point instead.
When to get help, and what we'd do
For a portfolio where a spreadsheet, done properly, is still the right size of tool, we'll set one up around your actual properties and requirements as part of importing your existing data, a guide price from £300. Where the portfolio's grown past that point, a CRM or simple system with every property, tenancy and compliance date in one place, reminders that fire automatically, and documents attached to each date, starts from £900 and typically takes two to four weeks. These are guide prices for typical projects; the fixed quote comes after a free 30-minute call.
Related
- General guide: The business runs on a spreadsheet that's creaking
- Sector pillar: Property spreadsheet chaos
- Sibling page: Landlord compliance checklist
- Guide: 7 signs your business has outgrown spreadsheets
Frequently asked questions
Can't I just add compliance dates to my existing landlord tax spreadsheet?
You can, but it tends to go wrong quietly. Tax spreadsheets are built around income and expenses, so compliance dates end up as an afterthought on a tab nobody opens unless they're doing the accounts, rather than the thing that's checked regularly.
What's the minimum I should track for each property?
At least gas safety, EICR, EPC and deposit protection dates, plus Right to Rent rechecks for any tenant with time-limited permission to stay. Each has its own cycle and its own evidence to keep, so each needs its own row, not a single combined date.
Do I need software, or is a spreadsheet genuinely enough?
For a handful of properties, a properly built spreadsheet with working formulas, conditional formatting and a calendar backstop is often genuinely enough. It stops being enough once more than one person needs to update it, or once you've had a date go wrong in the last few months.
How far ahead should reminders be set for a gas safety or EICR deadline?
Several weeks ahead rather than on the day itself, so there's real time to book a contractor. A reminder that fires the week something's due is really just an alert that you're already up against it.
What happens if I move from a spreadsheet to a proper system later?
The move is usually straightforward if the spreadsheet was kept tidy: dates and documents are exported, checked for duplicates or conflicts, and imported into the new system, with the spreadsheet kept as a backup until you're confident the new one is accurate.