First-day setup checklist

This is the order to do things in. Skip ahead at your own peril - a few of these depend on the previous step.

Plan on 30-60 minutes for the whole thing. The longest single step is usually waiting for Stripe verification, which is mostly hands-off.

Before you start

Have these ready:

• A property roster - addresses, lot numbers if you use them, and the monthly (or annual) dues amount per property. A spreadsheet is cleanest, but a PDF or a phone photo of a printed list works too. We’ll import it. Don’t have one at all? Start without a spreadsheet and add the roster later.
• Your HOA’s logo - PNG or JPG, square-ish, transparent background ideal but not required.
• Your HOA’s bank account info - for Stripe payouts. Routing + account number.
• A list of board members - names and email addresses.
• Your community’s join code policy - open to anyone with the address, or invite-only? (You can change this later.)

The checklist

Each item links to the deeper article when one exists.

1. Sign up and create your community

Go to homeherald.ai and click Try for Free. You land on a dropzone - drop your roster file in and HomeHerald builds a working preview of your own community out of it before you’ve created anything. No spreadsheet on hand? Take the No spreadsheet handy? Explore a sample community instead link underneath and look around a populated one first.

Either way, Start your free trial is the exit: name your community, pick your size, create your account, and you’re the first admin. The community starts on a 14-day free trial with the whole Automate plan turned on - no credit card needed, and nothing to cancel when it ends. Add a card whenever you’re ready and a full 30-day free trial starts on the plan you pick. Nothing is charged until that card trial ends, and you can cancel before then and pay nothing.

If you came in without a spreadsheet, activation also asks How should your community start? - Start empty or Start with practice data. See Starting without a spreadsheet.

2. Set basic community info

Settings → Community Settings.

Fill in:

• HOA name (this is what residents see)
• Logo
• Mailing address (used on letterheads if you send physical mail later)
• Contact email - this is where resident replies route. Use a shared address (board@yourhoa.com) if you have one.
• Contact phone (optional)

Don’t bother with amenities yet - we’ll do that after the property roster is in.

3. Import your property roster

Importing your property roster →

If your roster came in with you at signup, it’s already there and you can skip this step.

Otherwise: Properties in the admin sidebar, then AI Import - a fresh community shows a Bring in your roster card with an Open AI Import button, and after that it’s behind Add. Upload a spreadsheet, a PDF, or a photo of a printed list. Herald reads it and shows you a preview. Review, fix any mis-parsed rows, confirm. Done.

This creates a Property record for every line in your roster. After this, the rest of the system has something to attach to.

4. Configure dues

Settings → Community Settings → Dues & Assessments panel.

Configuring dues →

Set:

• Frequency: monthly or annual
• Due date: the day of the month/year dues are owed
• Grace period: how many days late before late fees apply (default 30)
• Late fee amount: what to charge when grace period expires
• Split schedule (optional): if you bill in chunks (e.g., 50% June, 50% December), set that here

Once you save, HomeHerald automatically generates the next round of dues charges across every property in your roster.

5. Connect Stripe (so residents can pay)

Enabling Stripe payments →

Settings → Community Settings → Payment Methods panel → Connect Stripe Account.

Stripe onboarding is ~10 minutes. You’ll need your HOA’s EIN (or SSN if it’s individually held) and a bank account for payouts. Verification is usually instant for US accounts.

You can skip this step temporarily - residents just won’t be able to pay online until it’s done. Don’t ship your community without it for long.

6. Invite your board

Inviting your board →

Members in the admin sidebar → Invite Board Member button.

Enter their name, email, and board title (Treasurer, President, etc.). They get an email invite. When they accept, they’re linked to a property and granted board-level access in one shot.

7. Invite everyone

Inviting residents →

Members in the admin sidebar → the Residents & contacts tab → Invite everyone.

This is the day-one path. Every owner, tenant, and billing contact on your roster gets their own personal link - by email where you have an email, by text where you have a phone number and your community can send texts. The link claims their home for them, so nobody lands in the pending-approval queue and there’s nothing for you to approve afterwards. Links are good for 30 days.

The modal shows you the whole list before anything goes out, grouped by how you can reach each person. Anyone who already has an account, or who was already invited, is listed with the reason and can’t be checked - so the counts never flatter you. People with no email and no phone show up under Letter only; nothing is sent to them from here, and the modal hands them off to Formal Letters with the welcome template.

Afterwards, a strip at the top of Residents & contacts keeps score:

Invited 84 of 96 · 61 joined · 23 still out

Still out means invited and still no account. When that number stops moving on its own, Resend to the 23 sends only to those people, and nobody who already joined gets pestered.

Roster with no contact details? Then the join code is your fallback: share it, residents sign up and pick their own property, and you approve each one before they get access. Most communities end up doing both - invite everyone you can reach, leave the code open for the stragglers.

8. Decide on automations (or skip for now)

Configuration (in the admin sidebar; mobile shows “Config”).

You can leave all of these off on day one and turn them on once you’ve gotten comfortable. The big ones:

• Dues Chaser - auto-reminders for overdue residents. Worth turning on within the first week.
• Herald Shield - AI-assisted violation escalation. Leave off until you’ve handled a few violations manually first.
• Herald Chat - resident-facing FAQ bot. Worth turning on once you’ve added some community info via the AI & Integrations page.

9. Verify it works

Send yourself a test by:

1. Opening an incognito window and signing up as a resident with a test email
2. Joining the community via the join code
3. Approving yourself from the admin side
4. Confirming you can see the property’s balance and the dues charge

If that works, you’re live. Tell your residents.

What you don’t need to do on day one

These can wait - don’t let them block your launch:

• Amenities & bookings - add them when you’re ready to enforce reservations
• Physical Mail (physical letters) - only if you mail violation notices
• AI knowledge base - useful for Herald Chat, but optional
• Apple Pay - requires live Stripe + domain verification, can be added later

Where to go next

• How HomeHerald is organized - if you haven’t read the mental-model article, do it now
• How the ledger works - once dues start posting, you’ll want to understand the financial side

Stuck on any step? Email support@homeherald.ai with the step number and what you’re seeing.