[en] Highlights: • Hexagonal & rectangle vacancy clusters retain the semiconducting nature of monolayers. • Pentagonal and triangle vacancy clusters introduce metallicity and magnetic character. • Vacancy chain patterns induce small bandgap in O-functionalized monolayers. • STM images show distinctly different characteristics for various vacancy patterns. • STM images can be used as electronic fingerprints to identify vacancy patterns created during functionalization. Electronic properties and STM topographical images of X (=F, H, O) functionalized silicene and germanene have been investigated by introducing various kind of vacancy clusters and chain patterns in monolayers within density functional theory (DFT) framework. The relative ease of formation of vacancy clusters and chain patterns is found to be energetically most favorable in hydrogenated silicene and germanene. F- and H-functionalized silicene and germanene are direct bandgap semiconducting with bandgap ranging between 0.1–1.9 eV, while O-functionalized monolayers are metallic in nature. By introducing various vacancy clusters and chain patterns in both silicene and germanene, the electronic and magnetic properties get modified in significant manner e.g. F- and H-functionalized silicene and germanene with hexagonal and rectangle vacancy clusters are non-magnetic semiconductors with modified bandgap values while pentagonal and triangle vacancy clusters induce metallicity and magnetic character in monolayers; hexagonal vacancy chain patterns induce direct-to-indirect gap transition while zigzag vacancy chain patterns retain direct bandgap nature of monolayers. Calculated STM topographical images show distinctly different characteristics for various type of vacancy clusters and chain patterns which may be used as electronic fingerprints to identify various vacancy patterns in silicene and germanene created during the process of functionalization.