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Importing your properties

The fastest way to populate your PMFriend agency is a CSV export from your existing PMS. The wizard reads typical column headers and maps them automatically.

What you can import​

A single CSV usually carries:

  • Properties — address, suburb, state, postcode, type (House / Unit / Apartment / Townhouse / Villa / Duplex / Studio)
  • Owners — name, email, mobile, mailing address
  • Tenants — name, email, mobile, lease details
  • Leases — start date, end date, rent amount, frequency

You can do these in one wizard pass or in several. The wizard never creates duplicates — re-running with the same file just confirms the existing records.

Source-specific exports​

PropertyMe​

Settings → Reports → Property List Tick all columns. Export as CSV.

The wizard recognises the column headers PropertyMe uses by default — no manual mapping needed.

PropertyTree​

Properties → Export → Full property list Tick all available columns. Export as CSV.

Same auto-mapping — PropertyTree's column names are similar enough.

Console Cloud​

Reports → Property Database Export Export as CSV.

Console's columns differ slightly from PropertyMe; the wizard prompts you for any column it can't auto-map. About 90% of mappings happen without prompts.

REST Professional​

Reports → Property → Property Export The REST format is older (tab-separated, not CSV) — save as CSV when prompted by Excel.

What happens during import​

  1. You drag-and-drop the file onto the import page.
  2. PMFriend reads the column headers and shows you how it's mapped each column. You can click any cell to remap.
  3. PMFriend shows a preview of the first 10 rows — you sanity-check that the right data is in the right column.
  4. You hit Import. PMFriend processes the rows, ~50/sec on a typical file.
  5. You see a summary: X properties created, Y owners created, Z tenants created, N rows skipped (with reasons — usually duplicate rows or missing required fields).

For a typical 150-property agency, the full import takes ~3–4 minutes including reading the file and resolving any prompts.

What gets generated automatically after import​

Once properties are in:

  • Compliance tasks — clicking "Generate for property" on the Compliance page creates the per-state register (smoke alarms, pool certs, etc.) for any property without tasks. You usually do this immediately after the import.
  • Property submission tokens — for the tenant report URL on the fridge sticker. Each property gets a unique token.

You don't need to do anything else for properties to be usable in maintenance, owner digests, or any other feature.

Common import gotchas​

  • Date formats — Australian DD/MM/YYYY vs US MM/DD/YYYY. The wizard asks if it sees ambiguous dates.
  • Postcodes with leading zeros (e.g. NT 0800) — Excel sometimes drops these. If your postcodes look 3-digit, re-export the file and open it without Excel reformatting.
  • Owner email duplicates — if the same owner appears with the same email across multiple properties, they're created once and linked to all properties.

What's not imported​

  • Trust accounting data — PMFriend doesn't touch trust ledgers, rent receipts, owner statements. Those stay in your PMS.
  • Documents — leases, condition reports, owner agreements. These can be uploaded to PMFriend separately if you want them indexed for case-pack assembly, but they're not imported in bulk during the property wizard.
  • Tenant histories — past tenants and old leases aren't pulled in. Only the current lease.

Going deeper​