How HomeHerald is organized

If you only read one article in this handbook, make it this one. HomeHerald is built around a specific mental model, and once it clicks, the rest of the software stops feeling arbitrary and starts feeling obvious.

The one rule that explains everything

The property is the unit of record. People and money attach to the property.

A property - a lot, a unit, a townhome, whatever your community calls it - is permanent. It exists whether the current owner moved in last week or has been there 30 years. Residents come and go. Money is owed against the property regardless of who currently lives there.

So in HomeHerald:

• Dues are charged to the property, not the person.
• Fines are charged to the property, not the person (even though a specific resident usually triggered them).
• Special assessments are charged to the property.
• Balances are tracked on the property.
• Residents are attached to a property - they don’t own the balance, they’re just the current occupants.

This means when someone moves out and a new owner moves in, the new owner inherits the property’s balance (or starts fresh, depending on what your closing agreement said) - but the property’s history stays intact.

The four entities you need to know

Almost everything in the admin app is one of these four things or relates to them:

Entity	What it is	Lives where
Community	Your HOA itself - the top of the tree	Settings → Community Settings
Property	A lot, unit, or townhome in your community	Properties
User	A person - resident, board member, or admin	Members
Financial Record	A single ledger entry - a charge, payment, credit, or refund	Transactions

Everything else (violations, work orders, bookings, announcements, fines) is built on top of these.

How they fit together

Community (your HOA)
   │
   ├── Properties ──── many
   │     │
   │     ├── Primary resident ──── one User
   │     ├── Co-residents ──── many Users (household)
   │     └── Financial Records ──── many (dues, fines, payments)
   │
   ├── Users ──── many (residents, board, admins)
   │
   ├── Violations / Requests ──── many
   │     └── Optional fine → creates a Financial Record on the property
   │
   ├── Bookings ──── many (linked to a User and an Asset)
   │
   └── Assets ──── many (pool, gym, pavilion, parking, etc.)

Read that diagram and the rest of the app stops surprising you.

Why this matters in practice

A few situations that confuse new admins, all of which the property-centric model resolves:

“A resident moved out but they still owe $400 in dues. What happens to that balance?” The balance lives on the property, not the resident. When the new owner is linked to the property, they inherit the balance. (You can transfer or write off the balance separately - see How the ledger works - but the default is “the property owes the money.”)

“I want to fine someone, but the violation was caused by a guest, not the homeowner.” The fine still attaches to the property. The current homeowner is responsible regardless of who triggered it - that’s how HOA enforcement works in the real world, and it’s how HomeHerald models it.

“A husband and wife both live in unit 12. Who do I send the dues notice to?” They’re both linked to the same property - one as the primary resident, the other as a co-resident - and both see the same balance and can pay it. Automated dues reminders go to one person per home: the billing contact if you’ve flagged one on the property, otherwise a resident linked to it.

“We just had a special assessment. Do I have to charge each resident individually?” No. You charge the properties. Each property in the community gets a Financial Record for the assessment amount. Residents see it because they’re linked to the property.

Roles, briefly

There are three user roles. We have a whole article on roles but here’s the one-liner version:

• Resident - sees their property, balance, requests, bookings. Can pay dues, file complaints, book amenities.
• Board member - everything a resident can do, plus the admin dashboard with management access to the whole community. Has a board title like “Treasurer” or “President.”
• Admin - the same management access, plus a few admin-only controls such as adding or removing people on the management team and changing someone’s role.

What’s not in this model

A few things admins sometimes expect that HomeHerald handles differently:

• No “tenant” vs “owner” distinction on accounts. Everyone with an account linked to a property is a resident. Ownership lives on the roster instead: each person under a property’s Residents & contacts is marked Owner, Tenant, or Other, and one of them can be the billing contact - so an absentee owner can get the dues notices while the tenant lives there. See Residents and contacts on a property.
• One login, more than one community. Someone who lives in or serves two HOAs that both run on HomeHerald uses the same login for both and moves between them with Switch Community.
• No “shared” or “common” properties. Common areas (the clubhouse, pool, etc.) are modeled as Assets, not Properties. Don’t try to make a property record for the pool.

Where to go next

Now that the model is clear, the obvious next steps:

• First-day setup checklist - what to do in the first hour
• Properties are the unit of record - deeper on the property entity
• How the ledger works - how dues, fines, payments, and credits all flow

If anything in the rest of the handbook stops making sense, come back to this article. The property is the unit of record. Everything else follows.