Comparison
Managing a rental in Excel or in an app? A comparison
Excel is more than enough to get started — with one apartment and an easygoing tenant, it's hard to find a cheaper tool. Problems start once you have several tenants, monthly utility settlements, and payment deadlines to track. See an honest comparison before you decide.First property free
When Excel is enough
We won't pretend a spreadsheet is a bad choice. Excel has real advantages and remains a sensible option in many situations.It's freeYou already have a spreadsheet in your office suite, or free in an online one. Zero extra cost, zero subscription.
It's flexibleYou can tailor the table layout, columns, and formulas exactly to your needs. No app gives you that much freedom for unusual calculations.
You already know itThere's nothing new to learn and no one to onboard. You open the file and get to work — no account, no setup.
It works offlineA file on your drive doesn't need the internet or a login. You always have it on hand, and no one can switch it off.
Just one apartment? Excel is genuinely enoughIf you rent a single apartment to a long-term tenant and utilities are either included in the rent or billed directly by the supplier, stick with the spreadsheet. An app starts paying off once more tenants join and monthly meter settlements pile up.
Where Excel starts to hurt
These scenarios come up again and again in conversations with landlords. If they sound familiar, a spreadsheet is no longer enough.Manual meter settlements every monthThe tenant texts you a photo of the meter, you type the reading into the spreadsheet, calculate consumption at the tariff rate, and email the result. Every month, for every apartment, separately.
Tracking payment deadlinesA spreadsheet won't remind the tenant about rent or tell you who's behind. You check the bank account and match payments against the table by hand.
File versionssettlements_v3_corrected_FINAL.xlsx — a year on, it's hard to say which file is current and how it differs from the last one.
Documents scattered across emailsThe lease is an attachment from two years ago, the handover report is in another thread, the addendum is somewhere on your drive. When a tenancy ends, gathering the documents can eat up an entire evening.
No change historyWhen a tenant disputes a settlement from six months ago, the spreadsheet won't show who changed a cell's value, when, or what the previous version looked like.
Formula errors at thresholds and pro-rated amountsBilling a partial month or a mid-period rate change are classic spots where a formula silently miscalculates — and the error only surfaces once there's a dispute with the tenant.
Excel and Brokik — a feature comparison
Honestly: what you can do in a spreadsheet (even if manually), and what simply isn't there.Aspect
Excel
Brokik
Rent and utility billing
Manual — you enter readings and rates yourself and keep an eye on the formulas
Automatic rent and utility billing based on meter readings
Payment reminders
None — you track deadlines yourself
Automatic payment reminders for the tenant
Documents and leases
Outside the spreadsheet — in emails and folders on your drive
All documents attached to the property, in one place
Signing the lease online
Print, sign, scan
Built-in e-signature confirmed with a one-time code sent by email
Handover/acceptance reports
Manual — your own template to print and sign on site
Electronic report with the apartment's and meters' condition, signed online
Meter readings from the tenant
The tenant sends a text or photo, you type it in
The tenant enters the reading in the app, and it goes straight into the settlement
Reports and tax summaries
Manual — you build the summaries yourself
Reports and annual tax summaries generated from your rental data
Tenant access
None — everything goes through you
Tenant account via email invite or QR code
Cost
Free, or included in an office suite
First property free, additional ones per the price list
Monthly time spent
Grows with every tenant — with several apartments, even several hours a month
Most of it happens automatically — you approve and keep an eye on things
Switching over takes about 10 minutes
You don't need to import anything or set everything up at once. Three steps, and the first settlement takes care of itself.1
Add a propertyEnter the apartment's basic details and the meters you bill the tenant for.2
Invite the tenantSend an email invite or show a QR code — the tenant joins in a minute.3
Set up billingSet the rent, utility rates, and payment deadlines. From then on, settlements and reminders run automatically.Frequently asked questions about switching from Excel
Short answers to the questions we hear most oftenYes. You can download reports and annual tax summaries from the app, and documents — leases, handover reports, and attachments — anytime. Your data isn't locked into the system.
You manage your first property for free, with no time limit. You only pay once you add further properties — see the price list for details.
To submit meter readings and see their billing, the tenant joins via an email invite or QR code. Some things work without logging in — for example, confirming a payment from a link in an email.
Partly, yes — and we say so openly. Brokik streamlines the typical rental scenarios: rent, utilities, documents, handover reports, and deadlines. For unusual analyses and your own simulations, you can still use a spreadsheet alongside the app.
Keep your existing spreadsheets as an archive — in Brokik you start from the current period, and your billing history builds up automatically from the first month. After a year, you'll have the full data set for your annual tax summary.
Also worth checking
See exactly what the app can do, and calculate your rental costsMove your rental from a spreadsheet to an app
Create a free account and add your first property — setup takes about 10 minutes, and your first property is free. You can always keep Excel around as an archive.© 2026 Brokik.com All rights reserved.