Reference

Troubleshooting

The issues that come up most often — "the resident says they paid but it's not showing," "Stripe shows error," "I can't find this property" — with the steps to actually fix them.

Last updated April 29, 2026

When something goes wrong, this is the place to look first. Issues are organized by symptom — find what matches your situation, follow the steps. If nothing here helps, the last section covers how to get support.

Payments

”A resident says they paid but I don’t see the payment”

  1. Filter the ledger to the property. Look for any PAYMENT record in the last 14 days.
  2. Check the payment method:
    • Card / Apple Pay / Google Pay: should appear within seconds
    • ACH: takes 3-5 business days to clear
    • PayPal / Venmo: should appear within minutes
    • Paper check: requires manual recording (you do this)
    • Direct bank transfer: requires manual recording
  3. If you don’t see it but the resident has a Stripe receipt: check Stripe Dashboard → Payments. If it’s there but not in HomeHerald, contact support@homeherald.ai with the Stripe payment intent ID.
  4. If they paid via a non-Stripe method: confirm the money actually arrived in your HOA’s bank account before recording.

”The resident says their card was charged twice”

  1. Check the ledger for two PAYMENT records on the same property within the same hour
  2. If you see duplicates, refund one of them — see Issuing refunds
  3. If only one record shows but the resident has two charges on their card, check Stripe Dashboard. Sometimes Stripe records both attempts but only one HomeHerald record is created.
  4. If unclear, refund both and ask the resident to retry.

”Stripe is showing ‘Payment failed’ to residents”

Common causes:

  • Card declined — resident’s card is expired, wrong, or has insufficient funds. They need to retry with a different card.
  • Stripe capability missing — your HOA’s Stripe account hasn’t completed onboarding for card_payments or transfers. Check Stripe Dashboard → Settings → Capabilities. Resolve in Stripe.
  • 3DS challenge required — some EU residents need to complete a 3D Secure challenge. They should see a prompt; if they don’t, browser issue — try a different browser.

”Apple Pay isn’t showing up at checkout”

See Apple Pay setup for the troubleshooting list. Most often: not on Safari, or not on a paid plan.

Properties

”I can’t find a property in the list”

  1. Try the status filter — Occupied, Vacant, and Delinquent properties may be filtered out depending on the current view
  2. Use search by address or lot number
  3. If the property was deleted (rare), it’s gone — contact support@homeherald.ai if you need to recover it

”A property’s balance is wrong”

  1. Open the property’s ledger
  2. Look for any voided or recently-edited records
  3. Compare against your bank deposits to find missing payments
  4. Don’t try to “edit your way” to the right balance — find the wrong record and fix it. See How the ledger works.

”Bulk import created duplicates”

If your import resulted in duplicate property records:

  1. Identify the duplicates by sorting on address
  2. Decide which to keep (usually the older one with linked residents and ledger history)
  3. For the duplicate to remove: archive it (preserve history) or delete it (only if no records / residents are attached)
  4. If many duplicates, email support@homeherald.ai for a bulk cleanup

Residents

”A resident says they can’t log in”

  1. Confirm their account exists — search Members in the admin sidebar by their email
  2. Check status:
    • Pending Approval — they need admin approval (you)
    • Inactive — they were deactivated; reactivate if appropriate
    • Banned — un-ban if appropriate
  3. If status is Active but they still can’t get in, they may have forgotten their password — direct them to the password reset flow
  4. If password reset doesn’t work either, contact support@homeherald.ai

”Resident is showing up under the wrong property”

  1. Open the user
  2. Edit → change linked property
  3. Save

If you accidentally linked the wrong resident as primary, the previous primary is demoted to co-resident. Re-link properly.

”A resident I removed is still seeing the property”

  1. Verify the user is actually unlinked — open the property, check linked residents list
  2. If unlinked but they still see it: their browser session is cached. Once they hit any page that fetches new data, they’ll be logged out / shown the no-property state.
  3. If you also want to revoke their account, deactivate it.

Bookings and amenities

”Two residents booked the same slot”

For approval-required amenities, the first to be approved wins. The second is auto-denied.

For auto-approved amenities, the system prevents this — but if it happened (rare bug), contact support@homeherald.ai.

”An amenity isn’t showing up for residents”

Check:

  • Visibility — is it set to “Hidden” or “Members only”?
  • Availability — is the resident outside the booking window or trying to book past max-advance?
  • Property has overdue dues — if you’ve set “Block bookings if overdue,” this prevents booking
  • Personal limits — has the resident hit their max bookings?

”I forfeited a deposit but the money didn’t come through”

The forfeit captures the held funds. Stripe processes it; the money should be in your account within 2-7 business days like any normal Stripe transaction.

If 7+ days have passed and you don’t see the deposit settlement, check Stripe Dashboard for the booking’s payment intent and confirm it’s marked “captured” not just “authorized.”

Communications

”Residents say they’re not getting our emails”

  1. Check email open rates in Dispatch / Announcement activity — are they opening but not engaging, or not getting them at all?
  2. Check spam — ask a few residents to check their spam folder; if HomeHerald emails are there, your community’s email reputation may be hurting deliverability
  3. Whitelist — for residents with corporate email accounts, ask their IT to whitelist HomeHerald’s sending domain
  4. Verify their email is correct — go to their profile and confirm

”An email I sent has typos / wrong info”

You can:

  • Edit the in-app version (residents who haven’t opened it yet see the corrected version)
  • Send a corrective announcement: “Correction to yesterday’s announcement: [thing]”

Don’t try to delete the announcement and re-send — residents will already have the email in inbox.

”Herald Chat told a resident the wrong thing”

  1. Update the AI knowledge base source so the underlying info is accurate (the AI uses configured sources as truth — fix the source, fix the AI)
  2. Reach out to the resident directly with the correct info

See Herald Chat and AI knowledge base.

Integrations

”Stripe says ‘Authentication failed’”

The connection has been lost. Reconnect:

  1. Settings → Community Settings → Payment Methods
  2. Click Reconnect
  3. Re-authorize via Stripe

If reconnection fails, the original Stripe account may have been deleted or frozen. Contact Stripe support.

”Physical Mail letters aren’t being sent”

Check:

  1. Connection status in Configuration → Physical Mail
  2. Physical Mail account balance — sufficient credit for letters?
  3. Letter status — search for the specific letter in Activity log; what’s the status?

If status shows “Failed” with an error, follow the resolution steps in the Physical Mail provider’s dashboard.

”Auto-conversion is converting emails it shouldn’t”

Adjust the auto-rule’s trigger conditions. See Email-to-ticket.

Plan and billing

”Our card was declined for the HomeHerald subscription”

Update the card under My Herald Account → Billing → Update card. The system retries automatically over 5 days.

If you don’t update before 14 days, the account downgrades to Free (data preserved). Reactivate to restore.

”We were charged for an overage we don’t think we used”

Property count exceeds your plan’s cap. Verify under My Herald Account:

  • How many properties are in the system? All properties count toward the cap regardless of status.
  • The cap is per-tier; you may need to upgrade or archive properties

If you believe the charge is wrong, contact support@homeherald.ai with details.

When all else fails

Contact support

Email support@homeherald.ai with:

  • Your community name
  • The issue (specific, with what you’ve already tried)
  • A screenshot if applicable
  • The relevant property / user / transaction ID

Most issues get a response within a few hours during business days. Urgent issues (down site, payments completely broken) get faster turnaround.

Check the activity log

Most automation features (Dues Chaser, Herald Shield, Herald Dispatch, Admin Digest) have an Activity log showing what they did and when. Check this before reporting a bug — sometimes the answer is “the system did exactly what was configured, the config is the issue.”

Check the audit trail

Most core entities (Property, User, Settings) have an audit history showing changes. Useful for:

  • “Did someone edit this and break it?”
  • “When did the change happen?”
  • “Who’s responsible for the change?”

Find the audit history under each entity’s detail view.

Use the system admin

If your community has multiple admins, ping the others. They may have made a recent change that’s the cause.

For very obscure issues, replicating with another admin’s account often clarifies whether it’s an account-specific issue or a system-wide one.

Where to go next

  • Glossary — for terms that aren’t clicking
  • How HomeHerald is organized — when the mental model isn’t matching what you see
  • The relevant feature article — every issue category above links back to the deep dive on that topic