Who can add a lease
Owners, co-owners and property managers can add and change leases. Accountants can view leases. Tenants see their own lease under My lease. The steps below describe the web portal.
Add a lease
Open Leases and choose Add Lease. Choose the tenant, then the property and unit. You can also start from a tenant's page with Add Lease. Adding a lease has four steps: Lease Details, Rent Schedule, Lease Agreement and Review. Check everything on Review before you save.
Dates, rent and deposit
Enter the Lease Start Date and Lease End Date. A lease must last at least 1 month, and only one lease can cover a unit for the same dates. Enter the Monthly Rent and the Security Deposit. Choose the Rent Due Date, from the 1st to the 31st of every month. If the tenant already lives in the unit and the start date has passed, tick Tenant has already moved in and enter the Move-In Date. The lease then starts active and the unit is marked occupied.
Payment methods and invoices
Payment Methods Allowed sets how the tenant can pay: All Methods (ACH, Credit Card, Cash), which is the default, or ACH & Credit Card. Invoice Generation sets when each rent invoice is created: On Rent Period Start Date, or from 1 to 20 days before the rent period starts. The default is 5 days before.
Rent increases and one-off changes
Use Rent Escalations to change the rent from a chosen rent period onward, until the next escalation. Use Custom Rent Overrides to set a different rent for a single rent period, with an optional reason. Each escalation or override needs its own starting period inside the lease.
Lease agreement
Upload the Lease Agreement now if you have it. It is optional: you can save the lease without it and add it later from the lease page (Upload Signed Lease on the web, Add lease document in the app). The lease page also shows Payment history, Rent schedule and Linked documents.
Add the lease as photos of its pages
If you have the lease on paper, you can photograph it instead of uploading a file. In the Lease Agreement step, on the lease page, or with Add lease document in the app, choose several photos of the pages (in the app, Choose Photo for several at once, or Take Photo to add one page at a time). The pages are listed in order. Use Move page up, Move page down and Remove page to fix the order, and Add more pages to add others, up to 30 pages. When you upload, KeyRing combines the pages into one PDF, which stays under the 10 MB document limit. If the pages come to more than 10 MB, remove a page or choose smaller photos. Choose either one document file or photos of pages, not a mix. A browser that cannot open HEIC photos asks for JPG or PNG; Safari and the KeyRing app handle iPhone photos.
Edit a lease
Choose Edit Lease on the lease page. Completed and ongoing rent periods are locked, so rent changes apply to future periods only. A lease that has ended is read-only. Its history stays available, but it can no longer be changed.
Move-in
Choose Move-In on the lease page and enter the Move-In Date. It must be on or before the lease end date. You can attach a Move-In Checklist (PDF, DOC, DOCX, XLS, XLSX up to 25 MB, or JPG or PNG up to 10 MB) and tick Send checklist to tenant upon move-in confirmation to share it. Add notes if you need to, then choose Confirm Move-In.
Move-out
Choose Initiate Move-Out on an active lease. Enter the Move-Out Date, which can't be earlier than the move-in date. You can attach a Move-Out Checklist and send it to the tenant. Then choose Confirm Move-Out to schedule the move-out.
End a lease early
Choose Terminate Lease to end a lease before its end date. If the tenant has moved in, enter a move-out date. Tick the box that says you understand the lease will be terminated and this cannot be reversed. After termination, the status changes to Terminated and payment history and documents stay available. Only the current rent period invoice is generated, and future invoices are canceled. A terminated lease can't be reactivated.
Lease statuses
A lease can be Upcoming, Pending Move-In, Active, Pending Move-Out, Move-Out Scheduled, Completed or Terminated.