Tally Stay is a UK bookkeeping and accounting practice built for one industry: serviced accommodation. We keep the books for rent-to-SA operators, short-let management companies, aparthotels and SA investors, and we do it with an ACCA-qualified team that understands how money actually moves through an SA business.
Generic accountants tend to treat serviced accommodation like a buy-to-let. It isn't. Bookings arrive net of platform commission, cleaning fees are charged to guests and paid to cleaners, deposits and refunds move between accounts, and if you manage properties for owners most of the money in your bank isn't yours. Getting those details right every month is what we do.
💡 In short: monthly SA bookkeeping in Xero or QuickBooks, OTA payout reconciliation, owner statements, VAT returns, and accounts-ready figures for Self Assessment and Corporation Tax, delivered by specialists.
Who we work with
- Rent-to-serviced-accommodation (R2SA) operators. You rent the property and keep the booking income, so every booking and every cost belongs in your accounts. We track profit per unit so you can see which properties earn their rent.
- Short-let and SA management companies. Booking revenue belongs to the property owner and only your management fee is income. We set up client-money tracking and produce owner statements your clients can trust.
- Hybrid operators. Many businesses run some units on R2SA and manage others. We keep the two models separate in the ledger so neither distorts the other. Read why R2SA and managed accounting are different.
- Aparthotels and SA investors. Multi-unit buildings, property-owning companies and investors moving from buy-to-let into serviced accommodation.
What our serviced accommodation accounting includes
- Monthly bookkeeping: every transaction recorded and categorised against the right property and the right business model.
- Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo reconciliation: gross booking value, platform fees, cleaning fees and payouts matched line by line to the bank.
- Owner statements for managed properties, built from reconciled figures and delivered on time.
- VAT: registration checks against the £90,000 threshold, quarterly VAT returns filed through Making Tax Digital, and the correct treatment of commission versus full booking value.
- Tax-ready figures for Self Assessment, Corporation Tax and year-end accounts, prepared by us or handed to your existing accountant.
- PMS integrations between Uplisting, Hostaway or Zeevou and Xero, so less is keyed by hand.
- Company formation for operators setting up a limited company for their SA business.
Why a specialist SA accountant matters
The most common problems we fix when a new client joins us are the same across the country: OTA payouts recorded net so revenue and fees are both understated, owner money mixed into the operator's own income, VAT registration triggered without anyone noticing, and no profit figure per property. Each one leads to tax being paid on the wrong number or decisions being made on the wrong number. Our article on how poor bookkeeping costs SA businesses money covers these in detail.
Tax rules for short-term lets are also changing. The furnished holiday lettings regime was abolished from April 2025, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax starts in April 2026, and local rules such as London's 90-night limit and Scotland's licensing scheme affect how you operate. Our 2026 serviced accommodation tax guide explains what each change means.
How it works
- Discovery call: we learn your model, property count, platforms and software.
- Set-up or clean-up: we configure Xero or QuickBooks with an SA chart of accounts and tracking by property, and bring any back records up to date.
- Monthly routine: bookkeeping, reconciliation and owner statements every month.
- Reporting: a monthly summary of profit by property and the cash position, ready for your accountant or for us to file.
Serviced accommodation bookkeeping across the UK
Our registered office is in Mildenhall, Suffolk, and we work remotely with operators throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. We have written local guides for the cities where we see the most SA activity:
- Serviced accommodation bookkeeping in London
- Serviced accommodation bookkeeping in Manchester
- Serviced accommodation bookkeeping in Birmingham
- Serviced accommodation bookkeeping in Edinburgh
We also support operators in Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Glasgow, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield, Cardiff, Brighton, Bath, York, Oxford, Cambridge and coastal holiday-let markets. If you run serviced accommodation in the UK, we can keep your books.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an SA bookkeeper and an SA accountant?
A bookkeeper records and reconciles your transactions every month: OTA payouts, rent, cleaning, utilities and owner payments. An accountant uses those records to prepare statutory accounts and tax returns. Tally Stay's ACCA-qualified team does both, so the figures your tax is based on are the same figures you manage the business with.
Do you only work with serviced accommodation businesses?
Yes. Serviced accommodation is the only sector we serve. That covers rent-to-SA operators, short-let and holiday-let management companies, aparthotels and SA property investors.
Which software do you use?
We work in Xero and QuickBooks and connect them to property management systems such as Uplisting, Hostaway and Zeevou, plus Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo and Stripe for direct bookings.
Can you take over from my current accountant part-way through the year?
Yes. We start with a catch-up and clean-up of your existing records, agree opening balances, and then move you onto a monthly routine. If you want to keep your current accountant for year-end, we hand them reconciled books.
Do I need to be near your office?
No. Our registered office is in Mildenhall, Suffolk, but all of our work is done securely online, so we support SA operators anywhere in the UK and English-speaking operators abroad.