Tenant Screening System — 15-Sheet Spreadsheet for Landlords

Pick the right tenant, track the whole lettings pipeline, and be able to prove why you chose who you chose.

Most landlords screen on instinct and find out months later what it cost them — a void they didn't plan for, a tenant who never really passed, a decision they can't justify if it's ever challenged.

This is a full 15-sheet system: set your targets once, track twelve months of actual activity against them, and see the whole year on a dashboard that builds itself.

What's inside — 15 sheets

1. Master Template — set your annual targets once, across four sections: Enquiries & Viewings, Screening Completed, Outcomes, and Screening Costs. Includes a how-to-use guide.
2. Jan through Dec — twelve monthly sheets. Planned figures inherit automatically from the master. You type only the Actual column; variance and variance % calculate themselves.
3. Applicant Log — 60 rows of per-applicant detail with automatic income and reference testing, and a recorded objective reason for every decision.
4. Overview Dashboard — whole-year totals, five key metrics, and three live charts. Nothing on it is typed.

The numbers you've never calculated

• Application-to-tenancy rate — how many applicants it actually takes to fill a property
• Cost per tenancy signed — advertising, referencing, credit checks, inventory and void cost, divided by tenancies actually signed
• Planned vs actual, per section, per month — with variance shown in red when you're under target and green when you're ahead

Costs invert automatically: under budget shows green, because spending less is good. Every other section shows red when you fall short.

Three live charts

Outcome mix (approved / declined / withdrew) as a pie chart · Applications versus tenancies signed by month as a bar chart · Screening cost trend across the year as a line chart. All linked to live cells — they redraw as you type.

Built to keep you on the right side of the law

The Master Template opens with what you may and may not screen on, with the Fair Housing Act and Equality Act flagged explicitly.

The single most useful thing this system does is force the correct sequence: targets first, applicants second, decision recorded third. Setting your standards before you know who applied is what makes a rejection defensible. Changing the bar after seeing the applicants is exactly what an unfair-treatment claim looks like.

The Applicant Log records an objective, evidenced reason against every outcome. That record is your defence.

Details

• Works in Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel — both.
• Formula cells locked; input cells shaded and shown in blue. Green text means a value pulled from another sheet.
• Drop-down menus on months, decisions and yes/no fields so your data stays consistent.
• Conditional formatting throughout — you see problems without hunting for them.
• Instant download. One payment, yours forever, including future updates.

This is a practical tool and general information, not legal advice. Anti-discrimination and tenancy law differ by country, state and city. If you are unsure whether a screening criterion is lawful where you let property, ask a solicitor or attorney before applying it.

30-day refund policy — no questions asked.