Inviting residents

This is usually the part admins worry about most. It’s actually the easy part - once your property roster is loaded, getting residents linked is mostly a matter of picking one of two flows and announcing it.

Faster than either flow below: if your roster already has emails or phone numbers on it, Invite everyone sends each person their own link that claims their home for them, with nothing to approve afterwards. See Inviting everyone at once. The two flows below are what the invite sits on top of, and what catches everyone it could not reach.

The two flows

Flow	How it works	Best for
Open join code	You share a code; anyone with it can sign up and request to join	Most communities, especially if you don’t have everyone’s email
Pre-approval	Put people on the roster with an email or a phone; matching signups auto-approve	Communities with a clean owner contact list and high accuracy needs

You can use both at once. Pre-approve the residents you have emails for; let the rest come in through the join code.

Flow 1 - Open join code

This is the default. Easy for residents, requires you to approve each one.

How it works for the resident

1. They go to homeherald.ai, click Sign up, choose I’m a resident
2. They enter the join code for your community
3. They pick their property from the list
4. They submit - their account is created in PENDING_APPROVAL status
5. They wait for an admin to approve them. They can’t see the community’s data until you do.

How to share the join code

Find your code under Members in the admin sidebar - the page header has a Community Join Code hero card. It’s a short alphanumeric string, e.g. MAPLEWOOD-7F2A.

Share it via:

• Community email blast
• Newsletter or HOA bulletin
• A flyer left at each door (effective for older communities)
• Posted on the community Facebook group

Approving pending residents

When someone signs up, you’ll see them in Members (admin sidebar) → Pending Approvals ({n}) panel. For each:

1. Confirm the property they picked is correct (sometimes they pick the wrong unit)
2. Confirm the email looks legitimate
3. Click Approve

They get an email confirmation and gain access immediately.

If something looks wrong, click Reject with a reason - they get an email explaining and can re-submit.

When to regenerate the code

The join code is permanent unless you change it. Reasons to regenerate:

• It got posted somewhere public it shouldn’t have been (Facebook leak)
• A bad actor is using it to spam signups
• You want to “close” the community (regenerate, don’t share, only invite by email)

Regenerate from the Members page → Regenerate Join Code? modal. This invalidates the old code immediately. Anyone who already used the old code is unaffected - they’re already in.

Flow 2 - Pre-approval from your roster

This is for communities that want signups to auto-approve when the email or phone matches a known resident.

How it works

HomeHerald derives the pre-approved list from the people already on each property. When someone signs up with an email or phone that matches one of those records and picks that property, they’re approved automatically - you don’t have to click anything.

Setting it up

You pre-approve someone by adding them to the property:

1. Go to Properties in the admin sidebar
2. Click the property, then Modify
3. Under Residents & contacts, click Add person (or Add resident in the Household section) and enter a name with an email, a phone, or both
4. Save

There is no separate pre-approved list to maintain. Anyone on the property with an email or phone who has not claimed the home yet is pre-approved automatically, and the entry drops off the list the moment they sign up.

For bulk pre-approval (the more common case):

1. Make sure your roster import included an Owner Email or Owner Phone column, and Tenant Email / Tenant Phone for a second person (see import guide)
2. After import, every one of those people is pre-approved for their property automatically, by email and by phone

What the resident experience looks like

If a resident signs up with a pre-approved email and picks the matching property:

• They skip the pending-approval queue
• They land directly in the community on first login
• They see their property and any existing balance

If they sign up with a non-matching email or pick the wrong property:

• They go into PENDING_APPROVAL and wait for an admin (same as the open flow)

This is a “fast lane plus fallback” model - you get speed when the data lines up, and a safety net when it doesn’t.

Handling the messy middle

In practice, most communities have:

• Some owners with known emails (pre-approve these)
• Some owners with no email on file (open join code is their only path)
• Some owners who never log in at all (you’ll handle these manually - see below)

“We don’t have an email for some owners”

Two options:

1. Send physical mail. If you have a mailing address (you do - it’s the property), send a postcard or letter with the join code. The Physical Mail integration can handle this for you (Configuration → Physical Mail).
2. Skip them for now. Their property still exists in the system, dues still post, balances still accrue. They just can’t see the portal until they sign up. You can manually record any payments they send by check under Transactions in the admin sidebar.

”An owner refuses to use the software”

Their property still works fine without a linked resident. Dues and fines accrue as normal. The board can still send mailed letters via the Physical Mail integration, and any payments they send by check are recorded manually.

The system doesn’t require every property to have an active resident - just don’t be surprised when their balance grows and you have to chase them by traditional means.

Co-residents (households)

When a primary resident is approved, their spouse / partner / family members can be added as co-residents:

• The primary resident invites them from their own profile, OR
• An admin adds them via Properties (admin sidebar) → [unit] → Add co-resident

Co-residents share visibility into the property’s balance and requests. They don’t get their own balance - there’s only one ledger per property.

Where to go next

• Inviting everyone at once - one button, one signed link per person on the roster
• Inviting your board - same flow with elevated permissions
• Configuring dues - once residents are in, they need to be able to pay
• Linking residents to a property - manual linking and edge cases