Add Your First Property

A walkthrough of the property → unit → obligation setup for new users coming from a spreadsheet.

The hierarchy

Organization
└── Owner (individual, LLC, or trust)
    └── Property (physical building / legal parcel)
        ├── Unit (rentable space)
        │   └── Transactions (income, expenses)
        └── Obligations (mortgage, insurance, utilities)

Transactions attach to units. If you have a duplex, each apartment is a unit. Rent for Unit A goes to Unit A; rent for Unit B goes to Unit B. This keeps your per-unit P&L clean.

Shared costs attach to the property. Mortgage, property insurance, and HOA fees are property-level costs — not tied to a specific unit.

Step 1: Create an owner

Before adding a property, create the owner entity that holds it.

Go to Portfolio → Owners → Add owner.

Owners can be:

An individual (your name)
An LLC
A trust or partnership

Most landlords start with a single owner (themselves or their LLC). You can add more owners later as you acquire properties in different entities.

Step 2: Add the property

Go to Portfolio → Add property.

Field	Notes
Name	Short label — "Beach House" or "123 Oak St"
Address	Full street address
Owner	Select the owner you just created
Status	Set to Active for properties currently generating income

Step 3: Add units

After saving the property, Estavo prompts you to add units.

Single-family home → one unit, auto-named "Unit 1" (you can rename it)
Duplex → add two units
Vacation rental community → add each rentable space as a unit

For each unit, set:

Lease type: Short-term or Long-term (this controls which features appear)
Name: Something useful — "Front unit", "Apt 2B", "Ocean View Suite"

Step 4: Add obligations

Obligations are recurring financial commitments that generate draft transactions on schedule.

Open a property and go to Obligations → Add obligation.

Type	Example
Mortgage	Monthly principal + interest payment
Insurance	Annual premium (billed monthly or annually)
Utility	Monthly electric, water, propane
HOA	Monthly or quarterly HOA fee

Set the schedule (monthly, quarterly, annual) and the amount. Estavo generates a draft transaction on each due date. You confirm, adjust, or skip.

Migrating from a spreadsheet

If you're importing historical data from a spreadsheet, do this after setting up properties and units:

Go to Money → Import
Download the CSV template for transactions
Map your spreadsheet columns to the template fields
Upload the file

CSV import is available on Starter plan and above.

Quick Start Overview