Small Portfolio Desk

1–20 unit landlords

Landlord software switch checklist — export this before you migrate

Search intent: leave one DIY landlord tool for another without losing leases, balances, or deposit records. Updated: Sep 2026 from vendor help centers and public migration write-ups — re-check export menus before you cancel anything.

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Most small-landlord “migrations” fail for a boring reason: someone canceled the old account before the CSVs, signed leases, and security-deposit ledgers were safely offline. Enterprise PM guides talk about 60–90 day projects. At 1–20 units you can move in a weekend — if you treat export as a project, not an afterthought.

What this page is (and is not)

Export first — the must-have pack

Pull these before you invite tenants to a new portal or turn off autopay on the old one. Prefer CSV/Excel for structured data and local PDF copies for signed docs.

Category What to grab Why it bites if you skip it
Properties & units Addresses, unit IDs, beds/baths, ownership notes Rebuild from memory = typos that break future reports
Active tenants Legal names, phones, emails, emergency contacts, household members New portal invites and notices fail silently
Lease terms Start/end, rent, due day, late fee rules, concessions, renewal status Wrong opening state → wrong next charge
Balances snapshot Amount due / credit per lease as of cutover date; prepaid rent Tenants see “I paid already” disputes on day one
Security deposits Amount held, date received, where held, interest notes if your state requires them Deposit errors are legal and trust problems, not just bookkeeping
Payment history YTD (or at least current-lease) rent ledger; ACH vs card vs cash flags if available Tax prep and “did you get my rent?” arguments
Expenses / vendors Maintenance spend, contractor contacts, open invoices Schedule E and vendor continuity
Documents Signed leases, addenda, move-in checklists, ID uploads, inspection photos Attachments often do not ride along in CSV exports
Open work orders Ticket text, status, photos, vendor assigned Half-finished repairs vanish from tenant view
Screening / apps Decision notes + report PDFs you are allowed to retain Fair-housing trail if a dispute returns; follow vendor + CRA retention rules

Pro move: export twice, a few days apart, and diff the CSVs. Catches tenants who paid or renewed between “I thought I was done” and go-live.

DIY tools: what you can usually take with you

These notes summarize public help docs and third-party migration write-ups as of Sep 2026. Treat them as a starting map — open your account and click Export yourself.

RentRedi

Dashboard sections commonly expose an Export Data control (floppy-disk style) that downloads CSV for the view you are on. Expect to walk property / tenant / finance sections one by one. Keep signed lease PDFs and any ID/inspection files as separate downloads — do not assume attachments are inside the CSV.

Verify path: section → Export Data. Paths move; screenshots age out.

TurboTenant

Public guides point to Settings → Export Data for bulk CSV (tenants, properties) plus section export icons for rent payments, rent roll, and expenses. Several migration write-ups note no bulk lease-document export — download signed PDFs manually while you still have access.

CSV-only is fine if your destination imports CSV; documents are the usual gap.

Avail

Public support and migration pages describe a narrower portability story: you can typically download a transaction / income-expense ledger as CSV (and individual payment receipts as PDF), but bulk CSV for properties, tenants, leases, and maintenance is often not offered. Plan manual re-entry (or PDF lease extraction) for structural data; treat Avail as “ledger + documents you already saved.”

If you are on Avail today, export the ledger and archive every signed lease PDF now — before you need them in a hurry.

Spreadsheets / “no tool yet”

Normalize one rent-roll sheet (unit, tenant, rent, deposit, lease end, balance) and a payment log. That two-file pack imports into almost every DIY landlord tool and beats hunting through email threads later.

Cutover timing that fits a small portfolio

  1. Pick a financial snapshot date — usually the morning after rent posts, not the 1st at midnight when ACH is still settling.
  2. Avoid peak chaos — skip the week renewals stack up, tax-deadline weekends, or the day you list a vacant unit.
  3. Renewals in the next ~60 days — finish or paper them on the old system when you can; mid-negotiation leases are the messiest to re-key.
  4. Parallel window — for 1–20 units, 3–14 days of dual truth is enough: old system remains source of payment truth until the first full rent cycle clears on the new portal.
  5. Do not cancel yet — keep the old subscription (or at least export + PDF archive) until balances match and every tenant has paid once successfully on the new rail.

Tenant communication (short template)

Send twice: ~14 days out, then ~48 hours before go-live.

  1. You are changing the portal used for rent and maintenance (name the new tool).
  2. What they must do: create/login, add a payment method, turn on autopay if they used it before.
  3. What stays the same: rent amount, due date, late-fee policy (unless you are changing those on purpose — say so).
  4. Who to text/email if payment fails in the first two weeks.

If tenants paid by cash retail or a specific card flow, spell the replacement path explicitly. “Download the app” alone is how rent shows up late.

Validation before you call it done

Balance match

For every active lease, old ending balance = new opening balance. Investigate every dollar of drift before inviting autopay.

Deposit match

Deposit on the new lease record equals your bank/trust reality (and your export). Fix here, not after move-out.

One test payment

Have one cooperative tenant (or yourself on a test unit) clear a small ACH/card so you see fees and posting delay.

Document spot-check

Open three random leases on the new system. If the PDF is missing, your attachment plan failed — stop canceling the old account.

15-minute pre-flight

  1. List every active unit and whether rent autopay is on.
  2. Run full exports + download signed lease PDFs into a dated folder (e.g. migrate-2026-09-07/).
  3. Write opening balances and deposits on a single rent-roll sheet.
  4. Draft the two tenant emails; schedule them.
  5. Create the new account, import what you can, and reconcile balances before the first mass invite.

Related

Educational product research only — not legal, tax, or fair-housing advice. Deposit, screening, and retention rules vary by state and by consumer-reporting agreements. Verify current export tools and terms inside each vendor account before you migrate or cancel.