Move your current tenants into eSamaHomes

For landlords, property managers · Last updated October 19, 2026

Who this is for

Landlords and property managers whose tenants already live in their units when they start with eSamaHomes. Do this after your properties are added.

Each tenant's signed lease: start date, rent, due day, and the deposit they paid.
Whether each tenant has paid this month's rent yet.
If tenants' deposits sit in the same bank as rent, add these leases before you confirm your opening balance. The deposits split on the Opening Balances page fills in from them. See Opening balances and your cutover date.
If you don't want tenants to get emails yet, open Settings, the Email tab, turn on Test mode in Outbound email and click Save. Every email then goes to your Reply-to address instead; with no reply-to address, it isn't sent at all. Turn it off when you're ready. Only the account owner can change this.

Open Leases and click New lease.
Select Tenants: pick or add the tenants who signed, up to 4.
Select Unit: pick the property and the unit.
Lease Terms: turn on Tenant already lives here. Leave it off for a new tenant: eSamaHomes then bills the first rent and the deposit. See Create a lease.
Pick the term from the signed lease: Fixed term (picked to begin with), Fixed, then monthly or Month-to-month. The first two ask for an End Date.
Enter the Start Date from the signed lease, the Monthly Rent (it fills in from the unit's rent; change it if the lease says otherwise) and the Due Day (1–28). Next to the rent, enter Deposit already collected, if the tenant paid one. No invoice is created for it.
Under Occupants, click Add occupant for children or other people who live there but didn't sign.
Pick Last rent the tenant paid before eSamaHomes: the due date of the last rent they paid you, or None yet. The list is empty until the start date and due day are filled in. eSamaHomes bills from the rent after it and shows that date under the field. A date that has passed is billed at once as owed, with no late notice and no late fee.
Click Create Lease. The lease starts now; sending for signing is for new leases only.
On the lease's page, under Documents, choose Signed lease for "What is this?", click Upload and pick the file.

Entered on October 13, with eSamaHomes billing 5 days before each due date:

Tenant	Rent, due day	Last rent paid	First rent billed	What eSamaHomes creates
Maria, month to month, no deposit	$2,350, the 15th	Sep 15	Oct 15	An invoice for Oct 15, the next morning
James and Ana, with two children	$2,200, the 22nd	Sep 22	Oct 22	An invoice for Oct 22, on Oct 17
Paul, deposit $1,500	$1,800, the 1st	Oct 1	Nov 1	Nothing for October; the Nov 1 invoice on Oct 27. The deposit is kept on the lease, with no invoice
Lucy	$1,600, the 1st	Sep 1	Oct 1	An invoice for Oct 1, the next morning, owed, with no late notice and no late fee

eSamaHomes bills each lease before every due date from then on: 5 days before unless you change Auto-bill days before due under Settings → Notifications.
Three days before a due date, every tenant on the lease gets an email reminder for an unpaid invoice (unless Test mode is on). The primary tenant's email has a Pay Now link. An invoice for a date already past, or made less than 3 days before its due date, sends no reminder.
A first rent date already past is owed but sends no late notice and charges no late fee. You follow up yourself.

An invoice for a month the tenant already paid. The last rent paid was set too early. Click Void invoice on its row on Rent & Payments. See Record a payment you received.
A deposit invoice, or rent due on the start date, appeared. Tenant already lives here was off, so the lease was made as a new one. On the lease, click Tenant already lived here? Fix billing. See Create a lease.
Billing should have started earlier. The tenant owes a rent from before the first one eSamaHomes bills. On the lease, click Bill an earlier rent under the dates, pick the First rent to bill and click Bill from this rent. The next billing run bills that rent and each one after it as owed, with no late notice and no late fee. Only an account owner sees it, on an active lease made with Tenant already lives here. It moves billing earlier, never later. If a rent in between already has a bill, eSamaHomes says so: choose a later rent.
A tenant isn't getting emails. Check the tenant's email address, that Test mode is off on the Settings Email tab, and that the invoice isn't one that sends no reminder (see above).