Owners: managing property for its owners

The Owners module is for whoever manages buildings someone else owns: a property-management office, or a company managing its partners' properties. It records who owns each property, in what share and from when, whether you manage it for its owners and since when, the management agreement between you, and which charges are your office's own service.

The module computes the management fee for each owner for each month and shows it to you, but it does not issue an invoice, issue an owner statement, pay owners out, or post anything to the books.

Turning it on

Owners is off in every workspace until a workspace admin turns it on from Settings → Configuration → Modules. It is available on Starter and above and during the trial; on the Free and Solo plans the switch shows a lock and a link to upgrade.

Once on, Owners appears in the sidebar, and an Owners section appears on every property page.

Owners and their shares

Open the property, and in the Owners section choose Change owners. Pick each owner from your contacts with their share as a percentage to two decimals; the shares must add up to exactly 100%. Three owners at 33.33% each add up to 99.99%, so that is refused: say who holds the remainder.

Each change has an effective date no later than today, and an optional reason. A change is not edited once saved: every change is saved as a new version and the earlier one stays in the History. Two changes saved with the same date make the second a correction of the first, which shows struck through in the history.

If the property already had an owner in its Owner field with no share, it shows in the section as Share not recorded, and one click makes them the owner at 100% when you start managing it.

Managing a property for its owners

With the owners recorded, choose Manage for owners and pick the start date. It is refused unless the property's owners add up to 100%. To end it, choose Stop managing for owners and pick the last day.

Managing and the books

A workspace's books keep only the workspace's own money. So:

• once this workspace's books are started (the Accounting module), no property in it can be managed for its owners;
• and if a property in it has ever been managed for its owners, even if that has ended, its books cannot be started, because the books include everything recorded in the workspace, whatever its date.

Manage the owners' buildings in this workspace, and keep the office's own books in a separate workspace (see Two ways to organise an office). If a property was marked managed by mistake, remove its managed period (see Removing a managed period recorded by mistake) and the books can be started.

Two ways to organise an office

One workspace keeps the books of one party only. So an office chooses one of two setups for each owner, and can mix them in one account: owners registered for VAT in the first, everyone else in the second.

Setup A: a workspace per owner

The owner's properties live in a workspace of their own, with Accounting and tax invoicing on in the owner's name and VAT number. The office's team works in it as members, and the owner's accountant can be invited and given the books or tax invoices from workspace-wide access, to keep the books and file the VAT return.

Rent in this workspace is the owner's income, the VAT is the owner's, and the office's fee is a supplier's bill recorded as an expense. Its properties are not marked managed for their owners, because its books are the owner's own.

Choose it for an owner who is registered for VAT, who must integrate with FATOORA, or who wants full books for their properties.

Setup B: an operations workspace and a workspace for the office's books

The office runs every property it manages for its owners in one operations workspace: one team, one Tasks page, one receivables list. Owners is on there, its properties are marked managed for their owners, and the Accounting books are never started there.

The office's own books (its fees, salaries, office rent and VAT return) are kept in a second workspace with no properties, with Accounting and tax invoicing on. The office issues its fee invoices from that workspace, because the office's VAT return reads only the invoices issued in its own workspace.

If an owner in the operations workspace is registered for VAT, their rent invoices can still be issued from there on their behalf, because tax invoicing does not need Accounting.

Choose it for owners who file no VAT return and only need to know what was collected for them and what was paid out to them.

An owner who is, or may become, registered for VAT

Start an owner who is registered for VAT, or may register soon, in a workspace of their own (setup A) from day one. There is no tool today to move a property from one workspace to another, so an owner who starts in the operations workspace and then registers has their properties created again in their own workspace.

This matters soon: on 24 July 2026 ZATCA announced the 25th wave of e-invoicing, which requires taxpayers whose revenue subject to VAT exceeded SAR 187,500 in any year from 2022 to 2025 to integrate with FATOORA by 1 February 2027 (ZATCA's announcement).

The management agreement

In the Owners section choose Set the agreement to record the terms:

• Management fee: a percentage of rent collected, a fixed monthly amount, or no fee. For a percentage you choose what it is of: all rent collected, or rent collected less the owner's expenses. The first is the default unless you change it.
• Leasing commission: prefilled at 2.5%, which the Real Estate Brokerage Law sets on the first year's rent unless agreed otherwise in writing. You can change it or leave it empty.
• Where the rent is paid: for residential and for commercial leases separately, to the owner or to the office.

A workspace admin can also record an owner's agreement from the owner's page, which applies to all of that owner's properties. A property with an agreement of its own uses that one instead.

An agreement is not edited once saved: a change is saved as a new version with its date.

The monthly management fee

Each month's fee shows on the owner's page, and in the Owners section of a property page for each owner of that property. Pick the month to see:

• Rent and services collected: every approved rent payment on a managed property, on its payment date, at the owner's share that day: the rent and the services added to the installment, that is everything the tenant paid for the installment except VAT. The VAT left out shows beneath it. If a payment is linked to no installment and no split, its VAT is worked out from its lease's VAT rate or, with no lease: none on a residential unit, otherwise the workspace default rate, whether the payment is on a commercial unit or on no unit at all (15% unless the workspace changed it), and the line says so. It includes rent paid to the office and rent Ejar paid straight to the owner, each shown on its own. Deposits are not included. It also includes what the tenant paid toward charges on them, except a charge marked The office's own service: its payment is not counted and shows beneath the line as Payments for the office's own services, left out.
• Expenses the owner bears: approved expenses on the property by invoice date, at the owner's share, except those marked The office's own service. They are deducted from the rent only when the agreement charges the percentage after expenses. The month's expenses under that agreement come off the month's rent under it, on the whole property: if the property moved from one after-expenses agreement to another during the month, the expenses are shared across those lines by the rent each collected. An expense dated while another kind of agreement was in force (on the full rent, a fixed amount, or no fee) stays on that agreement's line and is not deducted. If the expenses exceed the rent, that month's fee is zero.
• Fee: the rate on the amount it is charged on, or the fixed monthly amount for the days of the month the property was managed. It is worked out for each property on its own, so a loss on one property never lowers the fee on another. A fixed amount in an owner's agreement counts once a month, however many properties the owner has.
• Leasing commissions: for each new lease that started in the month on a managed property, at the agreement's rate on the lease's first-year rent alone, before services and VAT. That is how the system computes it; the Real Estate Brokerage Law's default rate is 2.5% of the first year's rent. They show on their own and are not added to the management fee. The owner bears the commission, so the owner statement deducts it from their balance for the month the lease started. A renewal carries none: a lease counts as a renewal when it starts for the same tenant on the same unit within a month of their previous lease there ending, or before it ends, even when it was recorded as a new lease from Ejar or from an offer, and it shows as Renewal, no commission. If the lease has no annual rent, the first year's rent is read from its payment schedule.

Every amount on a line is rounded to the nearest halala once, and the fee is worked out from the amount shown beside it, so you can check it yourself.

If a month's fee changes after its invoice was recorded (a payment approved late, a share corrected), a note shows the amount recorded with the invoice so you can settle the difference with the owner.

Removing a managed period recorded by mistake

A workspace admin can remove a managed period recorded by mistake from the History in the Owners section, after giving a reason, which is kept in the audit log. A period with a fee invoice recorded for any of its months, an owner statement issued for any of its months, or a payout to an owner dated inside it, cannot be removed; it can only be ended. It cannot end before the first day of the latest month a fee invoice was recorded or a statement issued for (an end inside that month keeps it in the period), nor before the day of its latest payout (see Payouts to owners).

The office's own service

An expense or a tenant charge (damages, utilities) on a property managed for its owners is the owner's without you doing anything. If it is a service your office provides itself, tick The office's own service on the expense or the charge. Rent is always the owner's, and a security deposit is the tenant's money and cannot be marked.

Marking a tenant charge this way also takes its payment out of the management fee, the owner statement and the figure payouts to owners are compared with, because it is the office's money, not the owner's, and the fee card shows it in a Payments for the office's own services, left out row. The payment is recognised by being recorded against the charge itself; a payment unlinked from the tenant counts as rent. If an owner statement was already issued for a month with such a payment, it shows as changed since issued.

Whoever may edit the record itself can mark it. The mark does not show in the phone app.

Payouts to owners

When the office transfers to an owner the rent it collected for them, record it in the Payouts to owners section of the property's page: choose the owner, enter the amount, the day of the transfer and the payment method, and attach the transfer receipt if you have one. Each payout is recorded for one property, and an owner's page shows their payouts on every property.

• A payout is accepted only on a day the property was managed by the office for its owners, and never on a day after today.
• It is refused when the management agreement sends both residential and commercial rent straight to the owner, because the office then holds none of the rent to pay out.
• If the amount is more than the owner's share of the rent the office collected, less what is already paid to them or awaiting approval, you see a warning; if the payout is an advance or was agreed, confirm it and it is recorded. This figure does not deduct expenses or the management fee.

A payout waits for a workspace admin's approval and shows in their Tasks. They can send it back to whoever recorded it for a correction. In a workspace run by one person (the "Solo" setup), recording is the approval. You can change the approval steps in Settings → Workflows → Owner Payout Approval.

While a payout is awaiting approval it can be cancelled: it is deleted and its approval cancelled. An approved payout is part of the owner's record and cannot be cancelled.

A managed period cannot be ended on a day before a payout recorded in it, because the payout stays with the period it was recorded in. Choose an end date on or after the last payout.

The monthly owner statement

Each owner has a statement for every month, in the Owner statements section of their page, or from the Statements link beside their name in a property's Owners section. It starts from the first month a property of theirs was managed, and shows each property, then the totals:

• Balance at the start of the month: the previous month's closing balance.
• Rent and services collected by the office, at the owner's share: the same figures as the management fee, by payment date and without VAT.
• VAT collected on rent the office holds, at the owner's share: the VAT the tenant paid with that rent and those services is the owner's, so it is added to their balance on its own line. VAT on rent paid straight to the owner already reached them and is not shown here. VAT never enters the amount the management fee is charged on. If the owner's contact has no VAT number, the draft says so, without stopping the statement from being issued. If the office issues this property's tax invoices as its own company, that VAT may be the office's to pay to ZATCA rather than the owner's: the draft points this out for you to decide, and the amount on the statement stays as it is.
• Paid straight to the owner, by contract type and the management agreement. Shown for information and not in the balance, because the office never received it.
• Expenses borne by the owner, paid by the office: an approved expense marked paid, in the month it was paid, at the owner's share on its invoice date, except one marked the office's own service. It is the amount the office paid, VAT included, while rent and services are shown without VAT.
• The month's management fee, as in the management fee (a percentage of rent and services without VAT, after expenses where the agreement says so, or the fixed amount), and approved payouts to the owner by their transfer date.
• Leasing commission: the owner bears it, and it is deducted from their balance in the month the new lease starts, whoever the rent is paid to, at the same amount as on the management fee. A renewal carries none. If the first year's rent cannot be worked out (no annual rent on the lease and no payment schedule), its commission is not deducted: the statement names the lease with Not deducted: the lease's rent is not recorded, and it can still be issued.
• If the opening balance differs from the closing of last month's issued statement, an Opening adjusted since the last issued statement line shows the difference and why: that statement was issued before VAT and commissions entered the balance, or the records changed after it was issued.
• Balance at the end of the month.

The balance is what the office owes the owner from money the office actually holds: rent and services the office collected with their VAT, less the expenses it paid for them, the management fee, the leasing commission and approved payouts. Rent paid straight to the owner does not enter it, but the fee on that rent does, so the balance can be negative: the owner then owes the office. Each month's opening balance is worked out from the records since the owner's first managed month, never stored, so a payment or expense recorded with an earlier date changes the later months.

A statement stays a draft that follows the records until a workspace admin presses Issue statement once the month has ended; it is then kept as it was and its figures never change. If the records change after it was issued, the month reads Changed since issued with today's balance, and Reissue replaces it with a new statement while the earlier one is kept. Download PDF prints the issued statement, or the draft marked as not issued, in the language of the app. Each issued statement gets a number of its own in your workspace, OST-1, then OST-2 and so on, shown on the month's row and printed on the PDF; a reissue takes the next number and names the statement it replaces. A draft has no number, and a statement issued before numbering began carries none.

Who sees and who edits

• Seeing owners, shares and agreements takes Financial oversight on the property, or Full access, or being a workspace admin.
• Editing owners, managed periods and a property's agreement takes Full access on the property, or being a workspace admin.
• An owner's agreement spans several properties, so only a workspace admin records one.
• The management fee shows to whoever sees the owners. Someone who sees only some of an owner's properties sees their lines without the totals. Only a workspace admin records a fee invoice or removes a managed period.
• Owner statements show to whoever sees the owners, and each month's figures to whoever sees every property its balance includes and every amount on them. Only a workspace admin issues one.
• Seeing payouts to owners takes Financial oversight, See payments or Record payments on the property; recording one, and cancelling it while it awaits approval, takes Record payments there, plus Financial oversight to see the list of owners to choose from. Whoever holds the approval step sees the payout and its amount.

The module is web only for now.