Xero for Airbnb Listings: Property Management without Trust Accounting

Airbnb Xero Templates
Airbnb Property Management Accounting in Xero

Why should you read this guide?

This guide covers property management accounting for Airbnb listings using Xero. Airbnb continues to be a profitable channel within the short-term rental industry. In many regions, trust accounting requirements for short-term rental property management are minimal or nonexistent, allowing new operators to enter the industry without significant regulatory barriers.

In this guide, we explain how to automate your accounting, integrate your Airbnb listings with Xero, and use an alternative accounting method designed for property managers who want to avoid the complexity of traditional trust accounting. Instead of maintaining a trust account, which involves significant administrative and compliance overhead, all funds received from Airbnb are recorded as income to the property management company, while all payouts made to owners are recorded as expenses.

Compared to standard trust accounting, which demands extensive training and meticulous data entry, this simplified method is much easier to maintain. It is popular for two key reasons: first, it requires roughly one-third of the data entry and training needed for conventional trust accounting; and second, it allows the property management company to report higher revenue levels, which can support stronger financial statements and improve eligibility for larger business loans.

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DISCLAIMER: If you operate in a jurisdiction that legally requires property managers for Airbnb to use a trust account, the accounting method outlined in this guide is not appropriate for your situation. Many regions classify property managers as fiduciaries who must safeguard owner funds, which necessitates a more rigorous and compliant trust accounting method.

NOTE: In this guide, we only cover income accounting, not costs. For a guide about Airbnb costs and chart of accounts to consider, check out this guide instead: Accounting for Costs to Operate Airbnb Listings: Best Chart of Accounts

SKIP TO TEMPLATE

Table of Contents

What you’ll get from this guide:

  1. Xero Chart of Accounts Template for Property Management of Airbnb Listings
  2. How to Automate Accounting for Airbnb Listings
  3. Execute Common Transaction Workflows in Xero
  4. Generate Monthly Reports in Xero

Cash Flow Diagram

Airbnb Property Management Cash Flow Diagram

Who should not read this guide?

Other business models exist. Some may be more suitable in your particular case. These are covered better in the following guides:

Xero Chart of Accounts Template for Property Management of Airbnb Listings

We will now walk through our chart of accounts template in detail. This structure will help you build a clear, well-organized system for tracking and managing all revenue from your Airbnb listings.

Account Codes

No. AccountType
24100Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds PayableLiability
24200Rental Liability – Airbnb Custom Taxes PayableLiability
42100Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Accommodation FareRevenue
42200Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Cleaning FeeRevenue
42300Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Resolution AdjustmentRevenue
42400Rental Revenue – Airbnb Refund – Accommodation FareRevenue
42500Rental Revenue – Airbnb Refund – Cleaning FeeRevenue
42600Rental Revenue – Airbnb Refund – Resolution AdjustmentRevenue
51100Rental Costs – Airbnb Service FeeDirect Cost
51200Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to OwnerDirect Cost
61100Airbnb Tax WithholdingsExpense
IMPORT TEMPLATE

NOTE: In this guide, we only cover income accounting, not costs. For a guide about Airbnb costs and chart of accounts to consider, check out this guide instead: Airbnb Costs and Chart of Accounts to Consider

Detailed Explanation of Accounts

Property management businesses that operate Airbnbs and who do not use a trust account—such as those described in this article—must instead rely on their operating accounts to collect Airbnb funds and issue payouts to owners. In this template, amounts paid to owners are treated as a business expense. These costs are recorded in “51200 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner” and offset by the liability account “24100 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable.” Continue reading below for a detailed explanation of each account.

Rental Liabilities

24100 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable – This account tracks Airbnb funds payable to owners. This is for property management businesses that do not use a trust account to manage funds.

24200 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Custom Taxes Payable – This represents all Custom Taxes collected from Airbnb and payable to a tax authority.

Rental Revenues

42100 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Accommodation Fare – This account tracks the accommodation fare portion of each Airbnb reservation. The accommodation fare is equal to the number of nights multiplied by the average nightly rate of each reservation.

42200 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Cleaning Fee – This account tracks the cleaning fee portion of each Airbnb reservation.

42300 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Resolution Adjustment – This account tracks any resolution adjustments collected from Airbnb.

42400 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Refund – Accommodation Fare – This account tracks accommodation fare refunds executed by Airbnb..

42500 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Refund – Cleaning Fee – This account tracks cleaning fee refunds executed by Airbnb.

42600 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Refund – Resolution Adjustment – This account tracks resolution adjustment refunds executed by Airbnb.

Rental Costs

51100 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Service Fee – This account tracks service fee costs from Airbnb for each reservation, which is subtracted from the income.

51200 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner – This account tracks amounts paid to owners as a cost to the business. This account is for property management businesses that do not use a trust account to manage funds.

61100 – Airbnb Tax Withholdings – This account tracks any taxes withheld by Airbnb for income tax obligations. This is very rare and usually due to the Airbnb account holder lacking tax identification information. Ideally, this account should not contain any balance and is seldom (if ever) used. To avoid income tax withholdings from Airbnb, be sure to update your Airbnb account with your tax identification information and verify your account.

Accounts not included in this template

For the scope of this guide, we’re mainly focused on Airbnb revenue recognition. It is important to point out that our template does not include many general accounts. We also make reference to some accounts not included in this particular template, which we’ll list here:

  • 11000 – Airbnb Payment Clearing Account – This account is created by Tallybreeze but is not included in this template in particular. This account is used to apply payments to Airbnb invoices upon the day the Airbnb reservation payout is posted. Payouts can take 3-5 days (or longer) to arrive in the bank account after posted from Airbnb. Monies owed are held in this clearing account until the payouts are received in the bank. This account also helps to automate the reconciliation process in Xero.
  • 1XXXX – Operations Bank Account – This is your business operations bank account set up with your financial institution. It’s a cash asset account to facilitate your Airbnb property management company’s day-to-day business operations.
  • 4XXXX – Billable Expenses Income – This is a general account for capturing income received for the payment of billable expenses by owners, which may include a markup.
  • 7XXXX – Billable Expenses – This is a general account for tracking billable expenses for any owners.

Quick Setup Steps

Here’s how to import the above chart of accounts template. All of the accounts discussed in this article can be imported into Xero automatically using Tallybreeze’s setup tools. Here’s how to access this utility…

  1. If you haven’t already, Sign Up to Tallybreeze. It includes free use of this template.
  2. Once registered, go to the Connections manager in Tallybreeze. Connect your Airbnb account, connect your Xero account and then create a connection between the two.
  3. Within the Connection settings, select “Set Up Xero”
SET UP XERO

How to Automate Accounting for Airbnb Listings

Tallybreeze accounting automation allows you to automatically process Airbnb payments and allocate payouts between the property management company and property owners, all while keeping detailed records of each reservation. When an Airbnb reservation is created, Tallybreeze automatically imports it and records it in Xero according to the rules you configure. We’ll cover this feature in more detail below, including how it works with the chart of accounts described above.

Tallybreeze Listing Presets

After connecting your Airbnb and Xero accounts, Tallybreeze will guide you through setting up accounting rules for each listing. To streamline this process, Tallybreeze provides a set of presets for quick configuration. Once you select the business model that matches your Airbnb property setup, the presets are organized into two main groups: Lines 1–6 and Lines 7–10.

Airbnb Property Management Tallybreeze Listing Presets for Xero
Explanation of Preset Lines

To learn more about each preset group, click on the corresponding dropdown.

Lines 1-6: All amounts received by Airbnb are 100% allocated as revenue

This group of lines maps all line items from Airbnb as income and costs to the business. This includes the accommodation fare, cleaning fee, Airbnb service fee (cost), any resolution adjustments, custom taxes (optional) and tax withholdings (if they exist)

Airbnb Price Item%Account
Accommodation Fare100%42100 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Accommodation Fare
Cleaning Fee100%42200 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Cleaning Fee
Airbnb Service Fee100%51100 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Service Fee
Resolution Adjustment100%42300 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Resolution Adjustment
Custom Taxes100%24200 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Custom Taxes Payable
Tax Withholdings100%61100 – Airbnb Tax Withholdings

Lines 7-10: Allocate 80% of the accommodation fare and service fee as a cost payable to the owner.

Example Reservation

Suppose you’ve configured Tallybreeze for this listing using the preset settings above. Now, imagine Airbnb issues a payout for an active reservation that includes the following itinerary price items:

  • Accommodation Fare: $3,000
  • Cleaning Fee: $400
  • Airbnb Service Fee: -$100
  • Airbnb Transient Occupancy Taxes: $300
  • Reservation Total: $3,600

First, Tallybreeze records all income received from Airbnb, itemizing each price component. The total amount owed by Airbnb for this reservation is $3,600, which is posted to the Airbnb Payment Clearing Account. This balance will later be reconciled against the actual bank deposit.

AccountDebitCredit
42100 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Accommodation Fare$3,000
42200 – Rental Revenue – Airbnb Income – Cleaning Fee$400
51100 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Service Fee$100
24200 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Custom Taxes Payable$300
11000 – Airbnb Payment Clearing Account (Asset)$3600

Next, within the same invoice, Tallybreeze calculates the owner’s share by applying the 80% split to the Accommodation Fare ($3,000 × 80% = $2,400). This amount is recorded as a cost payable to the owner. Tallybreeze then applies the same 80% split to the Airbnb Service Fee (–$100 × 80% = –$80) and reduces the owner payout accordingly, ensuring the fee is properly deducted from the total amount owed to the owner.

AccountDebitCredit
51200 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner$2400
24100 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable$2400
51200 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner$80
24100 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable$80

Finally, when the reservation payout is deposited into your Operations Bank Account (typically 3 to 5 days later) a bank rule in Xero can automatically reconcile the deposit against the balance in the Airbnb Payment Clearing Account.

AccountDebitCredit
1XXXX – Operations Bank Account$3600
11000 – Airbnb Payment Clearing Account (Asset)$3600

Set Invoice Customer & Class Categories

In your Tallybreeze settings, we recommend assigning the property owner as the contact on each invoice. You should also create a tracking category called “Listing,” with an option for each individual listing that identifies both the listing and its respective owner. See the example below:

Airbnb Property Management Xero Tracking Categories

Automate Additional Bills & Invoices (Optional)

With Tallybreeze, you’re also able to automate the creation of additional bills and invoices for each reservation. Consider the following:

  • Create a bill to set payouts payable to the property owner for each reservation.
  • Create a bill to set amounts payable to a tax authority for each reservation.
  • Create a bill to set amounts payable to a cleaning service for turnover of each reservation.
  • Create additional invoice to set amounts receivable by any third party for each reservation.

Quick Setup Steps

All of the above settings can be quickly set up using Tallybreeze’s presets for your listings. Here’s how to set up these presets…

  1. If you haven’t already, Sign Up to Tallybreeze.
  2. After logging into Tallybreeze, set up your connections, then go to Listing Rules.
  3. Select any listing you’d like to automate that hasn’t already been set up.
  4. Select “Load Presets”.

From here, presets will be loaded as your listing accounting rules and you can edit as needed.

SET UP AIRBNB ACCOUNTING

Execute Common Transaction Workflows in Xero

There are several additional types of transactions in Xero related to managing Airbnb properties, and each must be accounted for properly. Below, we outline some of the most common workflows.

Paying Owners

To find out how much you owe to an owner, look at the balance sheet and filter it selecting the proper tracking category for the owner. Then check the balance found under “24100- Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable”, the amount that needs to be paid pertains specifically within this account.

Example Transaction

You, the manager of Airbnb properties, are holding funds under “24100 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable” account in the amount of $15,000 for the owner, Jessica Lamb, for the listing 443 St. Adams Blvd. You’d like to pay this amount to the owner as a result of a month-end report.

First, you’ll need to send the owner the money via bank transfer, ACH, check or other means. Once the transfer is posted and complete, reconcile the outgoing transaction from the Operations Bank Account using the following entry:

DebitCreditTracking Category
1XXXX – Operations Bank Account (Asset)$15,000Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.
24100 – Rental Liability: Airbnb Owner Funds Payable$15,000Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.

Detailed instructions for Xero

Paying Expenses on Behalf of Owners

When a guest checks in, sometimes problems can be found with the property which the owner is responsible to pay but is not around to purchase. This can happen when there is an issue with maintenance or something else needs fixed right away – such as a backed up sewage pipe or broken faucet.

If your contract with the owner allows, you can make the purchase for these items directly from your operations bank account and subtract the paid amount from what’s owed to the owner under “51200 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner”. See example below:

Example

A property owned by Jessica Lamb needs a bathroom faucet to be replaced by a professional plumber. The service costs a total of $300 and needs to be rectified quickly as there are guests checking in later in the day. You also charge a 20% markup for allocating funds and handling these kinds of issues for the owner.

First, you’ll need to pay the plumbing company from your Operations Bank Account either via bank transfer, ACH, check, Venmo or other means. Once the transaction is posted and complete, record the outgoing transaction from your Operations Bank Account using the following entry:

DebitCreditTracking Category
1XXXX – Operations Bank Account (Asset)$300Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.
7XXXX – Billable Expenses (Expense)$300Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.

Next, make an entry to deduct the amounts from the amount you owe the owner under “51200 – Rental Costs – Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner”. Include a 10% markup for coordinating & funding the service, and allocate it to your billable expenses income account. Use the following entry:

DebitCreditTracking Category
51200 – Rental Costs: Airbnb Amounts Due to Owner$360Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.
4XXXX – Billable Expenses Income (Revenue)$360Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.

Detailed instructions for Xero

Remitting Custom Taxes

In most jurisdictions, Airbnb offers to collect transient occupancy taxes for remittance to local tax authorities on your behalf. However, in many regions Airbnb gives you the choice to receive these taxes yourself and have more control over the funds. The Custom Taxes line item in Tallybreeze will catch any taxes collected – our presets are designed for this purpose. You can then pay the local tax authority on your own terms following the below example:

Example

The owner, Jessica Lamb, has a listing at 443 St. Adams Blvd., which the Airbnb listing is set up to receive custom taxes for all reservations. In Tallybreeze, these amounts are allocated to “24200 – Rental Liability – Airbnb Custom Taxes Payable”. After running a balance sheet report on this listing in Xero, you see that $1500 is owed for transient occupancy taxes.

First, you’ll need to send your payment to the tax authority either via bank transfer, ACH, check or other means. Once the transaction is posted and complete, record the outgoing transaction from the Operations Bank Account using the following entry:

DebitCreditClass Category
1XXXX – Operations Bank Account (Asset)$1,500Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.
24200 – Rental Liability: Airbnb Custom Taxes Payable$1,500Jessica Lamb – 443 St. Adams Blvd.

Detailed instructions for Xero

SET UP ACCOUNTING AUTOMATION

Generate Monthly Reports and Owner Statements in Xero

Xero is a powerful tool for any small business owner, but it’s even better when you have all your financial data automatically pulled from Airbnb and precisely synced into Xero. Now that this is ready, producing beautiful statements or reports has never been easier!

Monthly Owner Statement by Listing

You will be able to show each owner, in great detail, precisely how much they’ve earned for each listing. The transaction report below provides a snapshot of what they’ve earned during a single month. This statement can be sent out each month so that owners can see how much they’re earning and the value of your services.

The example below is an owner statement for Berry Randalt, which has one listing:

Airbnb Property Management Owner Statement in Xero
Quick Setup Steps

Here’s how to create the above Owner Statement by Listing in Xero:

  1. In Xero, go to Reports, select “Account Transactions”.
  2. Under Accounts, select only the account “Rental Liability – Airbnb Owner Funds Payable”.
  3. Select the report period (perhaps the previous month).
  4. Under Columns, uncheck all columns except keep “Date”, “Description” and “Gross”.
  5. Under Grouping/Summarizing, select “Group by” and “Listing” or whichever you named for your tracking category that identifies your listings.
  6. Under Filter, only select the listings under the owner you want to report for.
  7. Sort by Description.
  8. Customize the title as needed.
  9. Select “Update”

From here this statement can be saved as a custom report and re-used every month for the owner.

Conclusion

Integrity is the cornerstone of any successful property management business, and a well-designed accounting process is essential to operating with clarity and control. In this guide, we’ve introduced an alternative approach to trust accounting—one that many property managers of Airbnb listings are adopting because it requires significantly less administrative overhead while still delivering the level of diligence owners expect. This method also presents a clearer, more substantial revenue profile for the management company, supporting stronger financial positioning when seeking business loans.

Ultimately, this approach enhances transparency not only for your property owners but also for you as the management company, giving you deeper insight into the true performance of your business. We hope this guide has provided meaningful value as you continue to build and strengthen your firm.

AUTOMATE ACCOUNTING

Finally, there are other business models that are not covered in this guide but are covered better in the following guides. Be sure to check these out :