Initial data setup

Entering a real portfolio in the right order, and the decisions to make before the first invoice.

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1. Enter data in this order

Each record requires the one above it. Entering them out of order means going back to reassign things by hand.

#	Create	Because
1	Areas	Buildings group into them for reporting
2	Buildings	Everything else lives inside one
3	Floors	Floor is required on the room form
4	Rooms	Leases are signed against rooms
5	Beds	Only if you rent per person
6	Services	Invoice lines come from these
7	Usage tiers	Only for banded electricity or water
8	Meters	Required before a metered service can bill
9	Payment accounts	Required on every receipt
10	Transaction types	Required on every receipt line
11	Documents	Needed to print or send anything
12	Roles and Users	Before staff start entering data
13	Tenants and Leases	Only once all of the above exists

These are painful to change once invoices exist:

Beds or rooms. Once a room has active beds, the bed field becomes required on leases, invoices and bookings.
How shared meters are split. Changing the rule later does not recalculate issued invoices.
The due date rule. Changing it mid-month leaves the month with two conventions.
Your transaction type list. Renaming a type changes past reports.

Pick a cut-over date
One date, announced to the team.
Start leases from the cut-over, not the original signature date
A lease starting in the past generates invoices for months you already collected by hand.
Enter opening meter indexes
So the first invoice charges one period, not a year.
Enter outstanding balances as opening invoices
So Outstanding balances is true from day one.
Enter deposits you already hold
So they can be refunded correctly later. See Deposits.
Stop maintaining the old spreadsheet
On the cut-over date.

Running both systems for a month guarantees they disagree and nobody knows which is right.

Última actualización 23 de septiembre de 2026