Thanks: your personal-use days log is ready

What to do with the template

1. Make a copy. Click the button above; the "Copy document?" dialog opens; click "Make a copy" and Google Sheets saves it to your own Drive. The master copy on Field Ledger's Drive stays untouched.
2. Set the tax year. Open the Summary tab. Cell B1 is the tax year every formula references. It defaults to the current calendar year via =YEAR(TODAY()); overwrite with a specific year if you want to lock it.
3. Add your properties. Open the Properties tab. Fill in the short-name column (rows 5-14). Every dropdown across the sheet now shows your properties.
4. Enter rental days per property. On the Summary tab, the leftmost column of the per-property table lets you pick a property from a dropdown; column B is where you enter the days rented at fair rental value this tax year. Column C then computes the §280A(d)(1) ceiling automatically.
5. Log the first personal-use day. Open the Personal Use Days tab. Row 2: pick the property from the dropdown, enter the date, pick the category, name the person or occupant, note the day's context. Columns F and G compute automatically; the Counts column returns "Yes" or a "No (...)" string with the reg trace.
6. Backfill this year's history. Add rows for every family stay, repair day, and property-showing day that already happened this tax year. The status pill on the Summary tab shows where each property already stands.
7. Weekly check. Fifteen seconds to scan the Summary tab: any property whose status has moved from Below to Approaching is now on decision-watch. Decide before family stays or optional personal-use days whether the property still has room this year.

Where the template stops (and Field Ledger picks up)

A template works if you maintain it. Most hosts start strong in January and lose the habit by May; that's the honest failure mode of any download. Field Ledger's default landing experience is AI-assisted natural-language capture on every plan (including the trial): describe the day in one sentence and Field Ledger stages Trip:/Activity:/Expense: draft lines you review and confirm before anything saves. Nothing is machine-asserted for you. If you'd rather type the structured lines yourself, switch to the Form tab; both paths land in the same review queue.

Either path produces the same §280A(d) day-count records this template captures, plus the §469 material-participation hour log this template deliberately does not cover, plus §274(d)-substantiation-aware mileage, plus per-property Schedule E CSV export at year-end. See our year-long walkthrough for the full three-axis discipline the loophole requires.

No pressure. The template is yours whether you try Field Ledger or not. But if the "start strong, lose the habit" pattern is what happens to your records, that's the exact gap the app is designed to close.

Related reading

• The full guide (what the template captures, why, and how to use it)
• The companion guest-stay tracker template (7-day rule)
• The 7-day rule for Airbnb hosts and the STR tax loophole
• How to track material participation for the STR tax loophole: a year-long walkthrough
• Free Airbnb Schedule E template