Audience: Landlords & Property Managers
Housters isn’t just meant for Landlords and Property Managers to manage their rental properties in a silo, it’s intended to be a platform for collaboration between Landlords, Property Managers, Tenants, and Vendors (aka Contractors). From the Subusers screen, you can invite other users to join Housters.
How much does it cost for Subusers?
Housters is completely free for Subusers. The owner of the master account (the Landlord or Property Manager who signed up for Housters) pays their monthly subscription, but any Subusers that they invite don’t have to pay anything.
What happens when I invite a Subuser?
When you invite a Subuser to Housters, it sends them an email telling them that you invited them to Housters. The message text can be customized from the Message Templates screen, but the default text lists out what Subusers in their role can do on Housters (e.g. Tenants can send online rent payments and submit maintenance requests.) The email also provides them with their username (which is their email address), a temporary password (that they will be forced to change on their first login), and a link to the Housters Login screen.
Which types of users can I invite to Housters?
For Landlords, you can invite three different types of users to Housters:
- Managers
- Tenants
- Vendors (our generic name for Contractors and other clients that you might collaborate with)
Manager Subusers are basically other people who help you manage your rental Properties. They may be other family members, or people who work under you, e.g. a secretary or accountant. When inviting a Manager Subuser to Housters, you can choose which Properties they have access to, and whether they have access to various features in Housters such as accounting, tenant rent statuses, To-Do’s, and reports.
When inviting a Tenant Subuser to Housters, you choose which Property they reside in and which Tenant they actually are (so we know who to associate online rent payments and maintenance requests to.) You can also choose whether they have access to various features in Housters such as Property info, their rent status, Invoicing, rent payment Transactions logged for them, Documents (e.g. lease agreements), and maintenance requests. Tenant Subusers can send online payments to you, assuming you have set up your account to be able to receive payments through Rotessa from the Online Payment Settings screen.
When inviting a Vendor Subuser to Housters, you choose which Vendor they actually are (so we know who to associate To-Do List tasks and Invoices to.) You can also choose whether they have access to the Invoicing feature or not. If you enable this then they will be able to send you Invoices through Housters, and then you can send online payments to them, assuming they have set up their account to be able to receive payments through Rotessa from the Online Payment Settings screen.
For Property Managers, there is another type of Subuser that can be invited to Housters, and that is Landlords. Landlord Subusers are similar to Manager subusers in that you can control which Properties they have access to (basically the Properties that they own) and which features they have access to. However, additionally it allows them to see their payment status (the payments either due to them or due to you) and to receive and send Invoices. Online payments can be sent both from Landlords to Property Managers and vise versa, assuming the receiving user has set up their account to be able to receive payments through Rotessa from the Online Payment Settings screen.
Tenant Subusers signing up directly
Tenant Subusers can sign up for Housters directly from the Signup screen, assuming their Landlord or Property Manager has not already signed up for Housters. If they have already signed up, the Landlord or Property Manager should instead invite the Tenant as a Subuser.
Tenants who sign up will need to input the email address of their Landlord or Property Manager, then Housters will send an invite email to their Landlord or Property Manager with instructions to get their account set up. Once they add a Property, add a Tenant, and assign the Subuser who invited them to a specific Tenant record (so Housters knows who the Tenant is and what their lease terms are), then the Tenant can sign in and start using Housters.
Vendor Subusers signing up directly
Vendor Subusers can sign up for Housters directly from the Signup screen.
Vendors who sign up will need to input the email addresses of their client Landlords and Property Managers, then Housters will send invite emails to them with instructions to get their accounts set up. Once their client Landlords and Property Managers add Properties and To-Do List tasks that are assigned to the Vendor, the Vendor will start seeing them in their To-Do Lists.