After your properties and units have been entered into Buildium, you can begin to add your people.
Buildium makes adding a tenant and a lease to a unit easy by creating both at the same time.
To import tenants and leases into Buildium:
- Navigate to Settings > Import data and click Upload data file.
- Select Tenants, and download and open the excel template from the Before you start section of the pop up window.
- There are several required fields, which are indicated by an asterisk:
- Property
- Unit number
- First name
- Last name
- Enter the move-in date, recurring charge amount, and recurring charge frequency, too.
If you don't enter a lease start or end date, Buildium will create a lease for that tenant on an At-will basis, using the date you are importing the file as the lease start date. - You can add all of your tenants onto one import file.
If you have multiple tenants living at one unit, only enter the recurring charge information for only the first tenant, then add a line item for each additional tenant with just their name, property, unit number, lease dates and any relevant contact information.
If you add recurring charge information for every tenant on a single lease, Buildium will create multiple charges on their ledger. - Once you’ve completed and saved the tenant import template, navigate to Settings > Import data.
- Then, click Upload data file and choose Tenants.
- In the pop-up window, scroll down to the upload section. From here, click Upload, then choose the completed template file.
- Once uploaded, click Save.
Rent can be used to split the leases’ rent into multiple charges that will post concurrently. These columns will create a single rent for the lease and should not be used for escalations of rent changes overtime
Buildium will validate the file, and let you know if there are any errors. You can click on the error message to view a report that indicates exactly what errors occurred so you can go and make any necessary updates to the template.
If all fields have been validated, a button will appear to Import data.
It’s important to know there is NO going back once you’ve hit the “import data” button after validating the files. We do not have the ability to correct any information in bulk once it’s been imported, so you want to double or even triple check the files before you import.
Time Saving Tips
- Multiple tenants for a unit
- Create a separate record for each tenant. Tenants with records that have a matching property name, unit number, lease start date, and end date will be associated with the same unit.
- Lease dates
- Pay attention to lease dates and make sure the lease dates for a given unit do not overlap. Overlapping leases will be rejected by the system.
- Email address formats
- Check your email addresses and make sure they conform to the standard “name@serviceprovider.com” - the most common error will be a missing @ symbol or an incorrect punctuation mark. For example, you might find “sample@provider,com” and the comma causes the error.
| Article #: | 112750 |