Licensed Irish letting agents must hold client money in a designated client account, keep a ledger per landlord, reconcile at least monthly with an audit trail, retain records six years, and file an annual Accountant's Report — under the Client Moneys Regulations 2012. Breach it and the PSRA can impose sanctions of up to €250,000. TenantSync CRM keeps a per-landlord client-money ledger that reconciles off the Open Banking rent flow, produces one-click per-landlord reports, and assembles a six-year inspection evidence pack — with a free 14-day trial, no card required.
Of all the jobs an agency carries, client money is the one with the least room for improvisation. Rent and deposits you hold aren't your money — they're your clients', held in trust, under rules that assume you can prove exactly where every euro is at any moment. The reporting side and the compliance side are really the same discipline seen from two angles: the landlord's monthly statement and the PSRA's reconciliation are both answers to "what happened to my client's money?"
Get that discipline right and it does double duty — it keeps you inspection-ready and gives each landlord the transparent statement that renews the management contract. Get it wrong, and a single reconciliation gap is both a regulatory exposure and a client you're about to lose.
This is a guide, not legal or financial advice
PSRA rules and the Client Moneys Regulations are detailed and change over time. This article explains the general position for Property Services Providers in Ireland. Confirm the current obligations for your agency with the PSRA and your accountant before acting.
The two masters problem
Accounts staff at an agency are, in effect, reporting to two audiences at once, and both are unforgiving in different ways:
- The landlord client wants a clear monthly statement — what rent came in, what was deducted and why, and what was paid out to them — delivered on time, every time. Vague or late statements are how good clients start shopping around.
- The PSRA wants evidence — a correctly designated client account, per-client ledgers, a monthly reconciliation, six years of records and an annual Accountant's Report — producible on inspection without a scramble.
The trap is treating these as two separate piles of work. They're not. Both are built from the same underlying fact pattern: money in, money out, per client, reconciled to the bank. Do that once, properly and automatically, and the statement and the inspection pack fall out of the same source of truth.
What the Client Moneys Regulations 2012 actually require
The obligations are specific. In summary, a Property Services Provider handling client money must:
The client-money obligations, in brief
- Designated client account. Hold client money in an account with the word "client" in its name, kept separate from the office account.
- Receipts. Issue receipts for client money received.
- A ledger per client. Keep a client ledger for each landlord, so every euro is traceable to whose it is.
- Monthly reconciliation. Reconcile the client account at least monthly, with a documented audit trail.
- Six-year retention. Retain the records for six years and produce them on inspection.
- Annual Accountant's Report. Submit a report signed by a qualified accountant each year.
Summary only. Confirm the current requirements with the PSRA and your accountant.
None of this is optional, and the backstop is severe: under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011, breaching the regulations can expose an agency to sanctions of up to €250,000, offences carrying up to €50,000 and/or five years' imprisonment, and suspension or revocation of the licence. Client money is, quite literally, tied to your licence to trade.
Why doing it by hand is the real risk
The regulations aren't hard to understand — they're hard to keep up across a growing book of landlord clients, month after month, by hand. The failure modes are predictable:
- Reconciliation slips. A monthly reconciliation across dozens of client ledgers is a big manual job, and the month it gets skipped under pressure is the month a discrepancy hides.
- Statements go out late — or inconsistent. Building each landlord's statement by hand from a bank export means they're slow, and small errors creep in that erode client trust.
- Records scatter. When ledgers, reconciliations and reports live across spreadsheets, email and your accountant, "produce six years on demand" becomes a genuine fear.
- Inspection becomes a panic. If evidence has to be assembled reactively, an inspection is days of stress instead of a click.
The goal isn't heroics at month-end. It's to make PSRA client-money compliance and per-landlord reporting a background hum — produced automatically from the rent you already track — rather than an annual panic.
Client-money ledgers, reconciled monthly off Open Banking
This is where running client money on the same platform as your rent flow changes the economics. Because TenantSync already matches every incoming rent payment to the right tenancy via Open Banking, that reconciled rent is client money — so the ledger builds itself:
- A ledger per landlord, posted automatically. Rent received posts as money in; the management fee, contractor costs and the disbursement to the landlord post as money out — so every euro of client money is traceable to the client it belongs to.
- Money held is visible. Rent collected but not yet disbursed shows as held on the client's behalf, so you always know your position per client, not just in aggregate.
- Monthly reconciliation with an audit trail. The client account is reconciled against the aggregate client ledgers, with a documented, sign-off-able trail — the exact thing the 2012 regulations require.
Instead of exporting a bank statement and rebuilding the ledgers by hand each month, the reconciliation is a review-and-confirm step on data that's already correct.
Turn the rent flow into client-money compliance
TenantSync CRM keeps a per-landlord client-money ledger off your Open Banking rent flow, reconciles it monthly with an audit trail, and produces per-client reports and an inspection evidence pack — so client money stops being a month-end scramble.
No credit card required · Imports from Letman & spreadsheets · Live in under 10 minutes
One-click per-landlord reports
Because the ledger already knows every movement per client, the monthly statement your landlord wants is a report, not a build. A strong per-landlord report answers the two questions every client actually has — did I get paid what I should have, and is everything legal? — in one place:
| Report section | What the landlord sees |
|---|---|
| Income vs expected | Rent collected against rent due across their tenancies for the period. |
| Arrears | Any shortfall, surfaced from the reconciled rent flow — not discovered weeks later. |
| Fees & expenses | The management fee and any contractor deductions, itemised and transparent. |
| Net paid | The gross-to-net figure disbursed to the landlord. |
| Compliance status | A green strip: RTB registration current, rent review within the national cap, client money reconciled. |
Producing that in one click, per client, on a consistent cadence, is what turns reporting from an admin cost into the most visible proof of the agency's value — the thing a landlord sees every single month.
The one-click inspection evidence pack
The other side of the same data is inspection-readiness. A PSRA inspection is, in practice, a test of whether you can produce the evidence: the live licence and Professional Indemnity Insurance, a Letter of Engagement per client, the designated client account, the per-client ledgers, the monthly reconciliations, six years of records and the annual Accountant's Report.
When all of that lives in one system with retention built in, "produce it on demand" stops being frightening. TenantSync CRM keeps the records under a six-year retention rule and can assemble a one-click inspection evidence pack, so what used to be days of reactive assembly becomes a single export.
Inspection-ready is a state, not a sprint
The agencies that dread inspections are the ones assembling evidence reactively. The ones that don't have kept it continuously, in one place. The difference isn't effort at inspection time — it's where the records lived all year.
Get the PSRA client-money inspection-readiness checklist
Start a free 14-day trial and TenantSync CRM turns the checklist into a live picture of your client accounts, reconciliations and records — so you're inspection-ready every day, not just at report time.
Manual client money vs TenantSync CRM
| Job | By hand / spreadsheets | TenantSync CRM |
|---|---|---|
| Client ledger per landlord | Built and updated manually | Posts automatically from the rent flow |
| Monthly reconciliation | A big manual job, easy to skip | Bank vs ledgers with an audit trail |
| Per-landlord statement | Assembled from a bank export | One-click, consistent, on cadence |
| Six-year records | Scattered across email & folders | Retained in one place |
| Inspection evidence | Days of reactive assembly | One-click evidence pack |
| Compliance status | Checked manually per client | Live on each report |
Reporting is your best retention tool
It's worth naming the commercial upside, because compliance framing undersells it. The monthly per-landlord statement is the single most frequent touchpoint you have with a client — and the clearest, most tangible evidence of the work you did. An agency that sends a clean, transparent, on-time statement every month is quietly renewing the contract every month. An agency whose statements are late, inconsistent or opaque is giving the client a reason to look elsewhere, no matter how well the properties are actually managed.
Automating client money doesn't just keep the PSRA happy — it makes the proof of your value effortless to deliver. That's why we build reporting on the same rent flow that runs your bulk RTB compliance and inquiry handling: one source of truth, serving the client and the regulator at once.
How to get started
- Start your free 14-day trial — no credit card required.
- Import your portfolio from Letman or a spreadsheet with concierge onboarding — no rekeying, no lost history.
- Connect the client account via Open Banking so rent reconciles and the client-money ledger posts automatically.
- Run per-landlord reports and reconciliations — and keep the inspection evidence pack a click away.
Frequently asked questions
What are the client money rules for letting agents in Ireland?
Under the Client Moneys Regulations 2012, a licensed letting agent must hold client money — rent and deposits — in a designated client account with the word "client" in its name, kept separate from the office account. The agent must issue receipts, keep a client ledger for each client, reconcile the client account at least monthly with a documented audit trail, retain records for six years, and submit an annual Accountant's Report signed by a qualified accountant. Confirm the current requirements with the PSRA at psr.ie.
How often must a letting agent reconcile the client account?
At least monthly. The Client Moneys Regulations 2012 require the designated client account to be reconciled against the client ledgers at least once a month, with a documented audit trail that can be produced on inspection. Doing this by hand across many landlord clients is slow and error-prone, which is why agencies reconcile client money automatically off the Open Banking rent flow instead. Confirm the current rules at psr.ie.
What does a PSRA inspection check?
An inspection typically checks that a Property Services Provider holds a live licence and the required Professional Indemnity Insurance, has a Letter of Engagement for each client, operates a correctly designated client account, keeps per-client ledgers and monthly reconciliations, retains records for six years, and can produce the annual Accountant's Report. The practical test is whether the agency can produce this evidence on demand — TenantSync CRM keeps it in one place with a one-click inspection evidence pack. Confirm the current process with the PSRA.
What is the penalty for breaching PSRA client-money rules?
Under the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011, breaching the regulations can expose a Property Services Provider to major sanctions of up to €250,000, offences carrying up to €50,000 and/or five years' imprisonment, and suspension or revocation of the licence to operate. That severity is why client-money handling and record-keeping are core to an agency's licence to trade, not back-office admin. Confirm the current position with the PSRA at psr.ie.
How does TenantSync help with client money and per-landlord reporting?
TenantSync CRM keeps a client-money ledger per landlord that posts automatically from the Open Banking rent flow — rent in, management fee, contractor costs and disbursement out — so every euro is traceable and the client account can be reconciled monthly with an audit trail. It produces one-click per-landlord reports covering income versus expenses, arrears and compliance status, and keeps a six-year record with a one-click inspection evidence pack, so an agency stays inspection-ready and gives each client a clear statement every month.