Landlord user guide

Creating your account

Kazi Kings has two sides: this public website, and a private dashboard where you manage your properties, tenants and money. An account gives you the dashboard. Landlord accounts are set up by the Kazi Kings team, so you start by sending a request. Every new account starts on the Free plan, with no card needed.

1. Send a request. Choose Get started on the website. Enter your business name, your name and phone number, then choose a username and a password of at least 8 characters.
2. Wait for approval. The Kazi Kings team reviews your request and gets in touch on the phone number you gave.
3. Sign in. Once approved, sign in on the landlord sign-in page with the username and password you chose. You are asked for your first property straight away; you can skip this and add it later.
4. Finish “About you”. Open Settings and add your gender and email, and your date of birth and address if you like. Your email is what lets you reset your password.

You become the account's Admin, the owner role that can do everything. You then add your own team and your tenants: see Your team and roles and Tenants.

Signing in

Each portal has its own sign-in page. Landlords and their teams use the landlord sign-in; tenants use the tenant sign-in, with the username and password their landlord gave them. Both are under Sign in at the top of the website.

1. Enter your username or email. Either works.
2. Enter your password. Tick "Remember me" on your own device to stay signed in.
3. Answer the sign-in check, if you turned it on. See Profile and security.

If someone in another account has the same username as you, the page also asks for your workspace, the short name of your business account. It is remembered on that device afterwards. To sign out, open the menu under your name at the top right and choose Sign out.

Your team and roles

Add the people who help you run your property from Staff Members in the sidebar. Each person gets their own login, and their role decides what they see.

When someone leaves, choose Deactivate on their row. They are signed out straight away and can't sign in again until you reactivate them, and everything they recorded stays. Someone who has recorded anything can only be deactivated, not deleted. Nobody can deactivate or delete themselves or the account owner, or change their own role.

Everything important that anyone does, such as recording a payment or adding a tenant, is written to the audit log with their name.

Properties and rooms

Your portfolio is organised in four levels, from the whole property down to the room or unit a tenant rents. A small property can use one building and one block.

1. Add the property. Go to Properties and choose Add property.
2. Add its buildings and blocks. Use Property Numbers, then Blocks, picking where each one belongs. Each list has an Add link on every row for the next level down.
3. Add the rooms. In Rooms / Units, choose Add room and set its monthly rent. The rent is used to work out the balance on each rent payment. If you change it later, the room keeps a history of its earlier rents.

Each room shows as Vacant or Occupied. You never set this by hand: it changes by itself when you add, move, deactivate or move out a tenant.

Deleting works from the bottom up, so nothing is lost by accident. A property can only be deleted once it has no buildings, a building once it has no blocks, and a block once it has no rooms. A room that has ever had a tenant, a water reading, a repair or an inspection is kept, because deleting it would delete that history too.

Tenants

Adding a tenant

1. Open Tenants and choose Add Tenant.
2. Enter their details. Name, phone numbers, email, address, their employer if you keep it, and a next of kin.
3. Choose their room. The room is marked occupied straight away.
4. Give them a username and password. They use these on the tenant sign-in page to open the tenant portal.

Looking after a tenancy

Open a tenant from the list to see their rent, payments, deposit and requests. The More menu on their page lets you:

• Move them to another room. Only vacant rooms can be chosen; both rooms update by themselves.
• Flag them as someone to follow up, for example over late rent. The flag clears by itself when you record their next rent payment.
• Deactivate them. An inactive tenant can't sign in to the tenant portal until you reactivate them, which only works while their old room is still free.
• Move them out when they leave. Their details and payments are kept, and the room becomes vacant again.

Rent and payments

Everything to do with money is under Finance in the sidebar.

Recording rent

1. Open Rent Payments and choose Record rent.
2. Pick the tenant. Their room's monthly rent is shown for reference.
3. Enter what they paid. The period it covers (this month is filled in), the amount and the date they paid.

The balance is worked out for you: the rent for the months the period covers, less the amount paid. Part of a month counts as a month, and the form shows the sum before you save. A tenant pays ahead when the balance goes below zero.

A tenant has one payment for any stretch of time, so a payment can't be entered twice by mistake. If they pay a month in two instalments, edit the first payment and add the second amount to it. Use With a balance due or the tenant and date filters to find payments quickly.

Other payments

Receipts

Every payment a tenant makes has a receipt you can download as a PDF. It is in your business's name, with your phone number and email (the account owner's, from About you in Settings, unless the business has its own):

• Rent: Download receipt on the payment, or in the ⋯ menu on Rent Payments and on the tenant's page. It shows the period, the rent for it, what was paid and any balance still due.
• Water: on a reading once its payment is recorded.
• Security deposit: in the ⋯ menu on Security Deposits, once a deposit is recorded, and on the tenant's page. A refund shows on it.

Each receipt has its own number (R- for rent, W- for water, D- for deposits), so downloading it again gives the same receipt. If you edit a payment, the receipt shows the new figures. Tenants can download their own rent and deposit receipts from their portal.

Reports and audit log

Reports, under Insights, has four reports you can filter and print:

• Rent received: what came in between two dates (this month to start with), and what is still owed on those payments.
• Tenants and balances: what each tenant has paid and owes, those owing most first.
• Occupancy: rooms let and vacant by property, the monthly rent they bring in, and the vacant rooms to fill.
• Money in by month: rent and water payments received each month of a year.

The Audit Logs screen (Admin and Landlord only) lists who did what and when: sign-ins, new tenants, payments, room changes and more. Filter it by words, person or dates.

Profile and security

Open Settings from the sidebar, or from the menu under your name.

• About you: your name, phone number and email. In the landlord portal also your gender, date of birth and address.
• Photo: a JPEG, PNG or GIF of up to 2 MB.
• Password: enter your current password, then the new one twice. It needs at least 8 characters.

Extra sign-in check

You can add a second step to signing in. After your password, you are asked to solve a short sum, such as 8 + 15. No app or phone is needed.

1. In Settings, turn on two-factor sign-in.
2. Answer the sum shown to confirm it works.

To turn it off, enter your password in the same place. The check is a small extra step, not a replacement for a strong password that only you know.

Notifications

The bell at the top of the dashboard shows how many unread notifications you have, for example an EFRIS receipt that needs attention or a change to your sign-in security. Open Notifications to read them, mark one as read, or mark them all as read at once.

Billing and plans

Admins and Landlords manage the subscription from Billing & Plan. There you can see your current plan, change it, pay through Pesapal or with mobile money, and open past invoices. Each invoice can be downloaded as a PDF for your records.

If a subscription lapses, nothing is deleted. Billing, your profile and notifications stay open so you can renew; the other screens open again once the account is paid up.

See plans and prices

The tenant portal

On plans that include it, tenants sign in on the tenant sign-in page with the username and password you gave them. Their portal shows:

• Their room and their recent rent payments, with a receipt to download for each, and for their deposit.
• Notifications from you.
• Their profile, photo and password, and the same extra sign-in check you can use.

Tenants only ever see their own details. A tenant with an email address can reset a forgotten password from the sign-in page; otherwise you can set a new one from their tenant record.

Troubleshooting