The first time you take on a third party owner, you find out that rent collection was the easy part. Now someone who is not you expects a monthly report that explains where their money went. If you searched for an owner statement template, you are probably at that moment. I practice law in Fort Worth and I run my own family's rental doors, so I have been on both ends of this document: the one writing it and the one reading it next to a trust account file.
An owner statement is a one or two page report, sent monthly, that shows what came into a property, what went out, what you kept as your fee, and what you paid the owner. That is the whole job. The mistakes are almost always in the details, so here is what I put on the page and why.
What the rules say you owe the owner
Texas does not hand you a form, but it does set a floor. I read the Texas Real Estate Commission trust money rule, 22 Tex. Admin. Code section 535.146, before writing this. Under subsection (c)(6), a broker must "provide an accounting to each beneficiary of trust money at least monthly if there has been any activity in the account." The same subsection requires a documentary record of each deposit or withdrawal. Subsection (e) says a broker must keep all documentation regarding a trust account for four years, counted from the date the document is received or created.
Two practical points follow. First, "at least monthly" means a statement for any month with activity, and a month with rent collected is a month with activity. Second, the statement is not the record. The statement is the summary, and the ledger and bank records behind it are what you hand over if someone asks questions in year three. If you hold a license, check the current text of the rule and your property management agreement yourself, because I am not giving you legal advice for your situation.
The seven sections I put on every statement
Second Nature, a property management company, publishes a monthly owner report template that lists six components: an income and expense statement, an owner statement with payouts and reserves, an account ledger, occupancy and turnover, property condition, and maintenance. I agree with most of that list. For a small operator, I collapse it into one page of money and one page of context.
| Section | What goes in it | Why the owner cares |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Header | Owner name, property address, statement period, date prepared | Owners with two or three properties file these by address. |
| 2. Beginning balance | What you held for this owner on day one of the month, including any reserve | Every number after it has to tie back to this one. |
| 3. Income | Rent received by unit and tenant, late fees, other charges collected | Shows what actually came in, not what was billed. |
| 4. Expenses | Each repair, bill, and vendor payment with date, payee, amount, and a short description | This is where owners ask questions. Give them the answer before they ask. |
| 5. Management fee | Your fee, shown as its own line with the percentage and the base it was calculated on | A fee that appears as a mystery deduction costs you trust. |
| 6. Owner payout and ending balance | What you sent the owner, the date, the method, and what you are holding going forward | The number the owner looks for first. |
| 7. Notes | Vacancies, lease renewals, open work orders, anything that will affect next month | Turns a ledger into a report. |
A worked example with real arithmetic
Here is a made up single family house so you can see the math tie. This is an illustration, not a client. Rent is $1,800 a month. Your agreement sets a management fee of 8 percent of rent collected.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Beginning balance (reserve held) | $500.00 |
| Rent received, October 3 | + $1,800.00 |
| Plumber, water heater valve, October 14 | - $215.00 |
| Lawn service, October | - $60.00 |
| Management fee, 8 percent of $1,800 | - $144.00 |
| Owner payout, October 20 | - $1,381.00 |
| Ending balance (reserve held) | $500.00 |
Check it: 500 plus 1,800 is 2,300. Minus 215, 60, 144, and 1,381 is 1,800 out, which leaves 500. The owner got $1,381, the reserve is untouched, and every dollar has a line. That is what "ties" means. If your statement cannot pass that test, do not send it.
Five mistakes that generate owner phone calls
- Lumping expenses. A line that says "repairs, $480" invites a call. Three lines with vendors and dates do not.
- Hiding the fee math. Show the percentage and the base. Owners who can reproduce your number trust it.
- Mixing owners' money. Each owner's statement should stand alone. If one owner's repair is paid from another owner's rent, you have a trust accounting problem, not a formatting problem.
- Sending it late and irregularly. The rule says monthly. Pick a day, such as the 10th, and send it every month. Owners relax when the report is boring and predictable.
- Skipping the receipts. Keep the invoice behind every expense line, tied to the statement it supported. Four years is a long time to remember a plumber.
Where spreadsheets break down
For one or two owners, a spreadsheet works. I ran my first statements in one. It stops working when you have a dozen properties, partial month proration, owner draws, and reserves, because every statement becomes a manual reconciliation against the bank. You also have no clean way to prove a number was not edited after the fact. A system that posts every charge, payment, and vendor bill to one ledger and generates the statement from that ledger removes the retyping, which is where most of the errors come from.
That is the reason I built owner statements into KeyTurn. The statement is a view of the ledger, so the numbers on the page are the numbers in the books. It does not replace your judgment about reserves or your agreement with the owner. It just means month end is a review, not a rebuild.
See owner statements run on a real portfolio
Lockwood Property Management moved its ledger, deposits, and owner statements onto KeyTurn. The case study walks through what month end looked like before and after.
Read the Lockwood case studyIf you manage for outside owners in Texas and want to see how your statements would look in KeyTurn, the beta request form is on the KeyTurn home page. Tell me how many owners you report to each month and I will tell you where I would tighten the process.
Related reading
- Texas security deposit checklist: itemization, wear and tear, and the forwarding address trap
- What is RUBS utility billing and how to set it up for a small portfolio
- Texas property management software: what small operators actually need
Sources
- 22 Tex. Admin. Code section 535.146, Maintaining Trust Money, retrieved October 12, 2026
- Second Nature, monthly report to owner template, retrieved October 12, 2026
Nothing here is legal advice for your situation and reading it does not create an attorney client relationship. The example above is illustrative. Rules and your management agreement control, and every section number above should be confirmed against the current text before you rely on it.