Switching property management systems
Nothing is written until you've seen it.
Moving a portfolio is the part people dread, and rightly — it's where balances get lost and arrears get invented. So we do it backwards: load everything into a dry run first, show you exactly what we found and what we couldn't make sense of, and write nothing until you say the word.
The dry run is free and costs you nothing but the file. You can walk away after it.
The dry run
Your portfolio, read back to you
Send whatever shape your records are in. Spreadsheets with merged cells, an export from your current system, three files that don't agree — that's normal, and it's precisely why this runs before you commit to anything.
What comes back is a report on your data: what was found, what matched, and every ambiguity we refuse to guess at. Duplicates and orphans are yours to resolve, because only you know which Mary Wanjiku is which.
- Properties found14
- Units found247
- Tenancies matched to a unit241
- Owners identified19
- Duplicate parties — same phone, two names3
- Units with no owner recorded2
- Tenants with no phone or email42
- Arrears brought forward402,300.00
- Opening journal balances to0.00
Opening balances
Arrears arrive as a journal, not as typed figures
This is the part that goes wrong elsewhere. If old arrears are written straight into a balance column there's nothing behind them — no date, no source, nothing to reconcile against. The first dispute exposes it.
Here they arrive as a dated opening journal that has to balance to zero before it's accepted, and marked as brought forward from whoever kept the book before you, so nothing is raised against the tenant twice.
- Tenant arrears402,300.00
- Opening equity402,300.00
The trap this closes: an old balance loaded as a live charge gets raised a second time. The tenant is billed twice for one month and nobody can see why, because there is no dated entry behind the figure.
The first week
What actually happens, and when
A real sequence, so the order matters. Most of the elapsed time is you checking things, not us processing them.
You send what you have
Whatever format. If it's four files that disagree with each other, send all four — the disagreements are information.
The dry run comes back
Counts, matches, and every ambiguity listed. Nothing has been written. You can walk away here having lost two days and no money.
You resolve the ambiguities
Which duplicate is real, who owns the two orphan units, which landlords are resident. Usually an hour of your time and a call to a caretaker.
The opening journal posts
Balances land, dated, marked as brought forward. From this moment the system is the record and the spreadsheet is history you keep for reference.
Money arrives against real charges
Charges raise on schedule, M-Pesa clears them, deductions compute, and you watch the first month reconcile. We're on WhatsApp for that week specifically.
Fair warning
Two things that make this harder
Both are common, neither is fatal, and you're better off knowing now than in month three.
Most portfolios we see are missing a phone number or email for the majority of tenants. We can load the money without them, but nobody can be given a login or sent a statement until they exist. Collecting them is the single highest-value hour of your cutover, and we'll give you the list of who's missing.
Sometimes the brought-forward figure is one the tenant disputes and the previous agent can't evidence. We'll load it exactly as given and mark it — but the dispute is yours, and pretending it isn't there just moves it to month three.
If you're taking on a portfolio from another agent rather than changing systems, the hazards are different. Read the takeover guide →
Next step
Send the file. The dry run costs you nothing.
No commitment, no account, no card. You get a report on your own portfolio either way — and if it tells you your current setup is fine, we'll say so.