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Import from QuickBooks or a spreadsheet

Bring your existing properties, tenants, and payment history into ProperLease from a QuickBooks export or a CSV, then confirm the numbers reconcile.

Last updated August 5, 20263 min read

If you already track rentals in QuickBooks or a spreadsheet, you do not have to start over. ProperLease reads a QuickBooks export or a plain CSV and brings your properties, tenants, and payment history across so your dashboard and reports are accurate from day one.

What you can import

The import brings in the three records that take the longest to enter by hand:

  • Properties, including address, type, and unit count.
  • Tenants, including the property and unit they belong to, contact details, and monthly rent.
  • Payment history, so your collected rent and cashflow reflect what actually happened, not just what you log going forward.

Expenses, utilities, and leases are added inside ProperLease rather than imported, because they depend on records that need to exist first. Import your properties and tenants, then layer the rest on top.

Prepare your file

A clean file imports cleanly. Spend a few minutes tidying the source before you upload.

  1. From QuickBooks, export your customers and transactions to CSV or Excel. From a spreadsheet, save the tab you want as a CSV.
  2. Make sure the first row is a header row, with one column per field: address, tenant name, email, unit, rent amount, payment date, payment amount, and so on.
  3. Put each record on its own row. One row per property, one row per tenant, one row per payment.
  4. Use a consistent date format and remove currency symbols from amount columns so the numbers read as numbers.
Split payments into their own file

If your export mixes properties, tenants, and payments together, it is easier to import them as separate files in that order. Properties first, tenants next, payments last, so each record has something to attach to.

Run the import

  1. Open Import from the More menu.
  2. Choose your source, QuickBooks or CSV, and select the file you prepared.
  3. ProperLease reads the file and shows a preview of the rows it found.

Map your columns

Because every export is a little different, ProperLease asks you to confirm which of your columns maps to which field. Match your address column to Address, your tenant column to Tenant name, your amount column to Payment amount, and so on. Anything you leave unmapped is simply skipped, so you are never forced to invent data you do not have.

Once the mapping looks right, confirm the import. ProperLease creates the properties first, attaches tenants to them, then records each payment against the correct tenant.

Verify the numbers reconcile

Importing is not done until the totals match. Take a few minutes to check the numbers landed where you expect.

  1. Open the Dashboard and switch to Year to date. The rent collected should match the total you were tracking before.
  2. Open Properties and confirm each property shows the right tenants and occupancy.
  3. Spot check one tenant's payment history against your old file to confirm dates and amounts came across correctly.

If a number looks off, it is almost always a column that mapped to the wrong field or a stray row in the source file. Fix the file and run the import again, or edit the affected record directly.

Duplicates are easy to avoid

Importing the same file twice will create duplicate payments. If you need to re run an import, remove the rows that already came across, or start from a fresh export.

Run your rentals with absolute clarity

ProperLease helps self-managing landlords in Canada and the US track rent, generate provincial and state leases, serve notices, and stay tax ready.