Overview
You may already have many tenants and leases, or you may just be starting your property management journey. In either case, you will need to add new leases to get started with DoorLoop.
Leases connect your tenants to the units they rent and record their charges, payments, and deposits. To keep things simple, DoorLoop allows you to create a lease and add a tenant at the same time.
The Steps
Step 1 - Overview
The first step when creating a new lease is to click Leasing on the main menu and then click either Active Leases or Draft Leases. You can also create new leases from the Leases tabs of your properties and units.
Click on the + New Lease button at the upper right of the display.
In the new Overview step, select the Property this lease will be for in the drop-down menu. (If you don’t see any properties yet, you’ll need to create some. Follow our Property Creation Wizard here.)
After selecting the Property, select the Unit this lease is for.
A new Lease Terms section will appear. From here, select whether this lease is Fixed Term or Month-to-Month, and enter the dates. If this is an existing lease, you can enter a start date in the past.
Click Next to continue.
Fixed Term leases: enter start and end dates for the lease using either the calendar icon or typing in a date in MMDDYYYY format. Note that if you enter a start date, an end date for one year later will auto-populate. Change this end date if necessary.
Note: If you already have an active lease set on this unit that overlaps with this new lease's terms, a warning will pop up stating this. It will also tell you that you need to fix the start and/or end dates of the existing lease, or change the dates for the new lease, depending on which is actually correct. |
When reaching the end date, the lease status changes from Active to Expired. Recurring transactions set to post automatically (such as recurring monthly rent charges) will stop posting.
(Optional) If you want your fixed-term lease to continue posting charges after the lease has expired, turn on rollover to month-to-month. Your lease will still have an expiration date, but the lease term will be appended with “Rollover” to let you know this lease will remain Active rather than Expired at the end of the lease term date.
Month-to-Month leases only require a start date. These leases never expire on their own and only end if you edit the terms or end the lease.
Step 2 - Tenants
The next step in the Lease process is adding tenants to your lease.
Click the + Add Tenant button.
If you already have Prospects or Tenants entered into DoorLoop, choose them from the list of available tenants and prospects. If not, click the + New Tenant button to create a new tenant. Enter as much information for the tenant as you’d like, but only either a First Name and Last Name combination or Company name is required. Click Save when you are finished.
To add additional tenants to this lease, click the + Add Tenant button and repeat steps 1 and 2.
When you’ve added all the tenants for this lease, the next step is to set their Tenant Portal access and whether or not you require Renters Insurance.
Tenant Portal: If toggled on, DoorLoop will send an email and text invite to the tenants using the email address or phone number you entered in their contact info. If you did not enter an email address or phone number, no invite is sent.
No worries if you don’t have an email address for your tenant or you aren’t ready to turn on tenant portal access yet—you can always turn it on later!
Learn more about the tenant portal and how your tenants can use it to make online payments and submit requests here.
Renters Insurance: This option displays a banner in your tenant's portal telling them that they are required to have renters insurance. Allowing tenants to upload their renter's insurance is currently controlled in your tenant portal settings.
Step 3 - Rent
The rent tab is where you would create the recurring charges, deposits, and credits needed to set up and run the lease.
Rent Charges
This sets up a recurring rent charge which automatically adds charges to the Transactions tab of the lease on a set schedule. You can add multiple recurring charges and even set up future rent schedules.
The First Rent Date is automatically populated based on the lease start date. You can change this manually if the start date to collect rent is different. Note that if the start of the rent is different from the start date of the lease, then you are also prompted to prorate the rent charge (create a one-time charge which you can leverage to be a different account if needed.)
Select the Frequency of how often the charge for rent will occur.
Enter the Amount of the rent charge.
If you have other recurring charges you want to include, select Show Advanced Options and from here you can click + Add Another Charge to add additional charges as separate line items to the recurring rent schedule, such as pet rent or parking.
It is recommended that if you have other recurring charges that occur at the same frequency, you should add them to the recurring rent charge as additional line items.
(Optional) You can schedule a Rent Increase by clicking on Schedule Rent Increase. This creates a future recurring rent charge that will replace the previous recurring rent schedule as of the start date you choose. You can use this to set up yearly rent increases for a multi-year lease for instance.
Step 4 - Security Deposit
If you charge and hold one or more deposits on your lease, select Yes for Security Deposit. Enter the Amount and Deposit Receive Date you will be collecting for the deposit. You can also click Show Advanced Options to enter other line item charges by clicking + Add Another Charge.
When your tenant pays for these charges, the payment creates a deposit on the lease Deposits tab. If this is an existing lease and you've already collected the deposit, read this page on how to record a past deposit that you have already collected.
Step 5 - Late Fees
Always make sure your late fee policy is the same as in your actual lease agreement and that it is compliant with your state and local laws. You can select between your default property late fee policy or specify your own for this lease. (Learn more about automatic late fees.) If required, a lease can have multiple late fee schedules.
Step 6 - Status
If this lease is currently active, click the Signed button and upload a copy of your signed lease for secure storage if you’d like.
If this lease is not yet active, click Not Signed. This brings up e-Signature options. You will have the choice to Save as Draft or Send eSignature.
Save as Draft will save this Lease as a Draft that you can go back to later to complete it. Clicking Send eSignature will create the lease as a draft and take you to the eSignature Wizard. (Learn how to Create eSignature Templates using this article.)
Clicking Finish will end the Lease Creation process.
Next Steps
View and edit your leases by going to Leasing and selecting Active Leases to see your current leases. To view and update leases you created in a draft status, choose Draft Leases.