Importing your data

In Settings → Data, choose Start an import. Only an Administrator can import, and imports are always into your own organization. You can start from the Rentova template, or upload a file you already have (.csv, .xlsx or .zip, up to 25 MB per file and 50,000 rows per kind of record).

The template is an Excel workbook with one sheet each for properties, units, owners, tenants, leases, opening balances, vendors and maintenance requests, plus a “Read me” sheet that explains every column. Fill in the sheets you need and leave the others empty. Dates are YYYY-MM-DD; money is a plain number. A zip of CSV files named after the sheets works the same way.

Have an export from another system instead? Upload it and use Another file: you match its columns to Rentova's fields yourself, and we remember the matching for next time.

1. Upload — choose your file or files.
2. Source — confirm whether it's the Rentova template or another file.
3. Map — check which of your columns feeds which field. Columns we can't use are listed rather than dropped silently.
4. Review — one tab per kind of record, with how many rows will be created, updated, left unchanged or skipped, and the specific problem on any row that has one. You need to open every tab before you can continue.
5. Confirm — the totals again, and the date until which you can undo.
6. Done — what was created, updated and skipped, and a download of any skipped rows with the reason for each.

• Preview before commit. Nothing is written to your organization until you confirm the preview. If you change an option, the preview is rebuilt and you review it again.
• All or nothing. The import is applied in one step; if anything fails, nothing from that file is kept.
• Safe to repeat. Importing the same file again doesn't create duplicates — matching records are reported as unchanged (or updated, if you leave “Update existing records” on).
• Undo for 7 days. Records the import created are removed and records it changed are put back. If something has happened to an imported record since — a payment recorded against an imported lease, for example — undo stops before changing anything and tells you which records are in the way.
• Sensitive data is refused. Files with Social Security number, date of birth or screening columns are rejected, and the column is named so you can remove it.

A balance a tenant currently owes is brought in as one opening-balance invoice dated the “as of” date you choose. A credit balance comes in as a negative opening balance. Payment history isn't imported — only the balance.

Importing tenants does not send them anything. When the import finishes, Review imported tenants shows just the tenants that import created, and Send portal invites emails them the same invitation you'd send from a tenant's page — when you decide to.