Rentara

Automatic rent posting, late fees, and a tenant self-service portal for the portfolio you already manage.

The problem it solves

If you manage a handful of rental units, you're stuck between two bad options. Spreadsheets don't tell you who's late, when a lease expires, or which unit is empty — and they certainly don't post rent charges, compute late fees, answer tenants' "what do I owe?" calls, or produce the monthly statement your property's owner wants.

Hosted property-management platforms do all of that — for a recurring monthly fee, often priced per unit.

Every feature

• A receipt to the tenant when a payment lands. What it was for, the amount, the date, the method — and what is still outstanding on the tenancy, computed by the same rule the arrears page uses. Off by default, through your own SMTP, and it never asks the tenant to pay.
• Maintenance status notices to the tenant. Open → in progress → resolved, in those words, with an invitation to reply if a job marked fixed is not fixed. Carries the tenant's existing portal link so it reaches them without copy-paste.
• Tenant self-service portal. Each tenancy gets a private link with no login — tenants see their lease terms, ledger, and balance, and can submit maintenance requests with a photo.
• Automatic late fees. Set a grace period plus a flat fee and/or a percentage of overdue rent, and Rentara posts one labeled late fee per overdue period, then optionally a fee per day, all under the cap you set.
• Automatic rent posting. Each lease bills itself monthly or quarterly anchored to its start day, with no cron needed and no risk of double-posting.
• Owner statements. Generate a printable income statement per property or owner for any date range, plus CSV export.
• Rent roll and arrears. See arrears the instant a due date passes, with an arrears report showing days overdue and tenant contact details.
• Maintenance tracking. Track tickets from open to resolved, with tenant-submitted requests flagged and costs flowing automatically into owner statements.
• Installable mobile app (PWA). Add it to a phone or tablet home screen straight from the browser — a full-screen app served from your own server, with no app store involved. Business data is not stored offline on the device; what you see is read live.
• Never miss a lease ending. The dashboard lists every tenancy ending in the next 45 days, a calendar feed puts every start and end date into your own calendar, and — if you switch it on — you get an email 60 days and again 14 days before each lease ends. Lease documents are filed on the lease itself.
• Rent that chases itself. A friendly note before rent is due and a note when it is late, at the steps you set, through your own email server. One note per tenant per day at most, pause any tenancy, and a preview of exactly what goes out today. Plus a daily list of arrears and leases ending soon, to you.
• Part payments, recorded honestly. A tenant who pays 1,500 of 2,100 is recorded as exactly that: the payment clears the oldest charges first and the rest stays owed, with every total, the arrears list and the late-fee rule still right.
• Pay by card from the tenant's link. Switch it on with your own Stripe account and the tenant's private link shows a Pay by card button when something is owed. The card goes to Stripe, the money to your bank, and the payment is recorded when Stripe confirms it.
• Late fees the way your rule says. An initial fee after the grace days, then a fee per day until the rent is paid, with a cap on one month's late fees: a fixed amount, a percent of the rent, or both. Rentara applies the rule you set; it counts from the day you switch it on.
• An owner portal. Each owner gets one link to their own statements, month by month, with no login: rent and fees collected, what is owed, repairs paid. Optionally, a monthly email with last month's link.
• Bank statement import. Upload the CSV your bank exports and Rentara proposes the tenancy for each payment in. Nothing is recorded until you confirm, and each payment only once.
• Updates from inside the app. The Updates page installs a new release with your license key: Ownware's signature is checked, a backup is taken first, and the app puts the previous version back by itself if the update is interrupted or the database step or start-up check of the new version fails. It never checks by itself.
• Backups by themselves. Automatic backups, an optional copy to S3-compatible storage you own, and a weekly check that the latest backup reads back. The Health page names anything that needs attention.
• Rent reminders by text. Through your own SMS gateway, only to tenants who agreed: a text before rent is due and on the day, and one when a late fee is added. Every text names you and ends with a stop link, and texts go only inside the hours you set.
• Own It 4.0.1 — fixes and an up-to-date manual. For Rentara, 4.0.1 fixes an installer that had lost its styling and a command-line update that ended in an error after putting the previous version back. Its manual, FAQ and QUICKSTART now cover everything 4.0 added, including two Nginx rules that keep the data folder private. Your license covers it: press Check for updates on the Updates page, or download it from your order page.
• Own It 4.0.2 — the installer opens on every host. For Rentara, 4.0.2 fixes a fresh install on an Apache host: the one-page setup at /install/ looped back to itself and never opened, and now it opens. Your license covers it: press Check for updates on the Updates page, or download it from your order page.

Release notes in full

• Own It 4.1: rent reminders by text. For Rentara, 4.1 adds rent reminders by text through your own SMS gateway, only to tenants who agreed. An Extended license bought from October 4, 2026 covers up to ten client installations, one per client project: hand each one over to the client or host it for them, with the client's logo and colors from the app's branding settings. The API reference now shows how to connect Rentara to Zapier, Make or n8n, using its own webhooks and API key. Your license covers the update: press Check for updates on the Updates page, or download it from your order page.
• Own It 4.0: it updates and backs itself up. For Rentara, 4.0 means updates from inside the app: the Updates page checks for a new release with your license key, verifies Ownware's signature, takes a backup and puts the previous version back by itself if the update is interrupted or the database step or start-up check of the new version fails. A new install can start with a sample business and remove it in one click; backups run by themselves, with an optional offsite copy and a weekly check that the latest one reads back; and the Health page says whether the install is looking after itself.
• Own It 3.4: a bank statement, matched to rent. For Rentara, 3.4 meant uploading the CSV your bank exports and getting a proposed tenancy for each payment in, by the tenant's surname or an amount only one tenancy owes. Nothing is recorded until you confirm, and a statement uploaded twice records each payment once. The units import's preview now counts exactly what the import brings in.
• Own It 3.2: tenants pay from their own link. The 3.2 wave let the people you serve do things for themselves. For Rentara, that meant tenants paying by card from their private link through your own Stripe account, rent reminders going out in your name at the steps you set, and each owner a link to their own statements with no login. Part payments are recorded as exactly what was paid, and late fees follow the rule you set, with a cap.
• Own It 3.1: it writes to the people you serve. The 3.1 wave gave the catalog a way to reach the other side of the transaction: counterparty email through your own SMTP server, calendar feeds your own calendar subscribes to, attachments filed where the paperwork belongs, and export presets other people's software imports. Each outbound feature ships switched off and runs on your own credentials; a failed send is recorded, and the action that triggered it stands. What this app gained is listed at the top of this section.
• Own It 3.0: works for your AI, not just for you. Seven MCP tools cover properties, leases, ledgers, the rent roll, arrears and maintenance — the same engine the screens render, with ticket moves running the product-defined transition table, reopen included. New PDFs deliver the lease summary with its full ledger and the money artifacts your accountant expects.
• Own It 2.0: API, 2FA, backups, dark mode. Rentara 2.0 adds the 2.0 owner layer. Upgrade by replacing the files — the database migrates itself, and it is still the same one-time purchase.