You cannot issue a receipt for unpaid rent by accident
The rule is in the code, not in your vigilance. No configuration, no box to untick: the absence of a confirmed payment is enough to prevent issue.
The rent
Your rent receipts go out on their own. Never for rent not received.
The rent receipt is the only document the tenant will ask you for throughout the tenancy, and the only one you cannot refuse them. Pilot issues it as soon as you confirm the payment, sends it, and archives it — without ever issuing a receipt for rent that has not been paid.
A rent receipt issued for unpaid rent is an acknowledgement of payment.
It is the trap almost no tool takes seriously. Issuing a rent receipt is not informing: it is certifying that the sum has been received. Software that issues its receipts “on the 5 of every month” whatever happens therefore delivers, every month the rent has not arrived, a document that weakens the landlord exactly when they would need to be strong. Worse: the same document serves the tenant to establish their rights with a social benefits body or a future landlord. Pilot therefore never issues a receipt on anything other than a confirmed payment — not even on a partial payment.
- Issued on confirmation of payment, not on a fixed date
- A partial payment triggers no rent receipt
- Sent by e-mail to the tenant, with the PDF attached
- Pro rata calculated automatically for a move-in or move-out month
In practice.
The instalment exists, and waits
The payment schedule is generated from the tenancy agreement and extended automatically as the end of the term approaches. So every month carries an expected amount, a tenant and a date, before any payment is made.
You confirm the payment
On a single screen listing everything expected this month, across all tenancies. The amount received and the payment method are recorded; it is this action, and this action alone, that authorises the rent receipt.
The receipt is produced with its mandatory statements
Landlord, tenant, address of the property, period covered, rent excluding charges and advance payments shown separately, total, date. Splitting rent from charges is not cosmetic: it is what makes the receipt enforceable and usable by the tenant.
It goes to the tenant, and stays with you
Sent by e-mail with the PDF, and archived in the tenancy file. The tenant also finds it in their own area, with no account to create and no password to remember.
A monthly safety net replays what failed
A sending can fail for a reason that has nothing to do with you — a full mailbox, a server unavailable. A monthly catch-up sweeps the past months and replays the missed sendings, rather than letting them die in a log that nobody reads.
What it changes
The move-in and move-out pro rata is calculated
A tenant who moves in on day 12 or leaves on day 8 of the month does not owe a full month. The calculation and the period label follow, which avoids the rent receipt redone by hand — that is, the one where mistakes creep in.
The automation can be switched off, and issuing remains possible
Automatic sending can be switched off: the receipt is then generated without going out on its own. You keep the compliant document, and you choose the channel.
The law, and the pitfalls
The landlord must provide a rent receipt free of charge to a tenant who requests one. The receipt distinguishes rent from charges.
art. 21 of Law No. 89-462 of 6 July 1989
Free of charge, and without making it conditional on anything. A landlord who withholds receipts to put pressure on a tenant exposes themselves, and deprives themselves of the only document that proves what they have actually collected — in other words, of their own accounts.
When the tenant makes a partial payment, the landlord must issue an ordinary receipt, not a rent receipt.
art. 21 para. 2 of Law No. 89-462
The distinction is not a matter of vocabulary: the rent receipt certifies that the debt for the period has been extinguished, the ordinary receipt records a payment. Issuing a rent receipt for a partial payment therefore extinguishes, on paper, a claim that still exists. That is why a partial payment never triggers a rent receipt with us.
Advance payments for charges must appear separately from the rent, and be reconciled annually against actual expenses.
art. 23 of Law No. 89-462; Decree No. 87-713 of 26 August 1987
A rent receipt showing a single overall amount makes the annual reconciliation indefensible: neither you nor the tenant can reconstruct what was paid in advance. The breakdown at the time of the rent receipt is what makes the year-end statement possible.
What Pilot refuses to do
Pilot does not issue a receipt for rent not received
Neither on a fixed date nor on a partial payment. The rent receipt certifies a payment; issuing it without payment produces a document that will be used against you.
art. 21 of the Law of 6 July 1989
Pilot does not backdate a rent receipt
The period covered and the date of issue are those of the recorded facts. A backdated document produced to tidy up a timeline is exactly what a dispute brings to light.
Availability
Included from the Essentiel tier.
- 7-day trial at launch, card required
- No commitment
Frequently asked questions
Does the receipt go out automatically?
As soon as you confirm the payment, yes, if automatic sending is on — it is by default. When it is off, the receipt is generated and available, and you send it yourself.
And if the tenant only pays part of the rent?
No rent receipt is issued. The law provides for an ordinary receipt of payment in this case, because a rent receipt would certify that the debt for the period had been extinguished while it still stands. The balance outstanding continues to be tracked as partial arrears.
Can the tenant find their receipts without asking me?
Yes. Their space is reached through a link of their own, with no account or password, and they find their rent receipts there. Access is automatically revoked thirty days after the end of the tenancy.
What happens if the email does not arrive?
A monthly catch-up sweeps the past months and replays the sendings that failed. We have learnt that a failed sending that nobody replays becomes a month without a rent receipt that nobody notices.
And the move-in month, which is not a full one?
The pro rata is calculated and the period label says so. The same applies to the move-out month.
Right next to it.
The rent
The rent call goes out before the date, not after.
Sent automatically before the date, at the notice you set.
The rent
Three reminders, in order. Switched off by default, on purpose.
Three strictly sequential levels, at the interval you set. Switched off by default: it is up to you to arm them. The tenant’s home insurance and the landlord insurance have their reminders too.
The rent
Rent detection: written, exercised, and deliberately closed.
Matching of transfers received with the expected instalments.
Deadlines and compliance
The reconciliation is calculated on what you collected.
Calculated on actual spend, with the itemisation by category and the allocation method required by law.
Content reviewed on 2026-08-06.
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