At my girlfriend’s house the utilities are in her name. Electric, gas, water, internet and trash. That’s five companies, five logins and five due dates. In July the electric bill was $305 and neither of us could say if that was normal. So I started writing every bill down, every month, in one place. This is how I do it now.
Write down each bill’s company, account and due day once. Then log what it came to every month, and keep the PDF with it. Compare a month with the same month last year, not with last month.
Write each bill down once
Before tracking amounts, I made a list of every bill the house has. It sounds boring. It’s also the list you need when an account gets switched, a card expires or you sell the place.
- Company: who sends it, and the website you pay it on.
- Account: the last four digits, so you can tell two accounts apart.
- Due day: the day of the month it’s due, and if it’s on autopay.
- Whose name: yours or the tenant’s. If it’s theirs, you still want to know it’s on.
Then log what each one came to
Every month I log the amount on each bill. Same grid as rent: bills down the side, months across. Here’s Maple House, our sample house, from July to October. Water wasn’t due yet when I made this, so October shows what had come in.
| Bill | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity | $305 | $291 | $268 | $240 |
| Gas | $29 | $29 | $36 | $56 |
| Water | $104 | $102 | $96 | Not due yet |
| Internet | $80 | $80 | $80 | $80 |
| Trash | $60 | $60 | $60 | $60 |
Spot the one that went up
Comparing with last month is mostly noise. Electric goes up every summer and gas every winter. What I actually look at is the same month last year. If July electric was $250 last year and $305 this year, that’s worth a look. Maybe the AC is running all day in an empty room.
Internet and trash should be flat. When one of those moves, it’s usually a promo price ending. That’s a phone call, not a mystery.
How I do it in Roomline
In Roomline each house has its bills under its rooms, on the same months. I add a bill once with the company and account. Each month I either type the amount or drop the bill’s PDF on the month, check what it read, and the PDF is kept in Files.
Upcoming shows when each one is due. The “Which bills went up?” chart on Analytics stacks them by month, so a jump stands out. And at the end of the year, the year-end summary puts every bill on one sheet for taxes.
Roomline only keeps track of bills. It never pays them or charges your tenants anything.
Or just ask
If you connect Claude or ChatGPT to Roomline, you can ask “Which bills went up this month?” or “Chart my electric bill by month.” It reads the bills you logged and answers from them. Nothing reaches a tenant unless you say yes.
Common questions
How do landlords keep track of utility bills?
Write down each bill’s company, account and due day once, then log what it came to every month with the bill itself attached. A spreadsheet works. Roomline does it per house, reads the amount from the bill’s PDF, and charts it by month.
Does Roomline pay my utility bills or bill my tenants?
No. Roomline keeps track of what each bill came to. You still pay them the way you do now, and it never charges your tenants.
Is it free?
Roomline is free for 1 property after the 45-day trial, bills included. For more properties it’s $12 a month, or $96 a year.