Sometimes the owners were directly involved with the management of shoens, but the managers who were hired by the owners supervised denko (tenant farmers) or slaves, collected the land tax or farm rent in the form of products or money from them and at times gained the amount of difference by investment using the market price.
荘園は所有者が直接経営に携わる場合もあったが、所有者に雇われた管理者が直接耕作者である佃戸及び奴隷を監督して生産物や金銭などの形式で租税や小作料を徴収して管理し、時には相場を利用して運用を図り差額を儲ける者もいた。