If your portfolio lives in a spreadsheet today, you can bring the whole thing into NestBord in a few minutes. Open Settings → Import Data (or the Import button on the Properties page).
What the importer expects
One row per unit. The importer is flexible about column names and order — it figures your headers out, and you confirm every mapping before anything is created. These are the columns it understands:
- Property — a building name, a street address, or both. Rows with the same property are grouped automatically ("123 Main St" and "123 main st" become one property).
- Unit number — "101", "A-2", "Suite 300". A single-unit house can leave this blank; it imports as unit "Main".
- Monthly rent — required per row. "$1,500.00" and "1500" both work.
- City, province, postal code — province can be "ON" or "Ontario". If your sheet has no province column, you pick a default during the preview. Postal codes are optional at import time.
- Tenant name, email, phone — optional. Rows with an email get a tenant account; separate First/Last name columns are joined automatically.
- Lease start / end — optional dates. With a start date the lease is created active; no end date means month-to-month. The importer detects your date format and lets you flip it if it guessed wrong.
- Beds, baths, square feet — optional.
The four steps
- Add data — in Google Sheets, select your rows including the header row, copy, and paste straight into the import box. Or export as CSV (File → Download → Comma Separated Values) and upload the file.
- Map columns — NestBord pre-fills the mapping from your headers. Anything ambiguous, the AI assistant suggests, and you can override every column with a dropdown.
- Preview — see exactly what will be created: how many properties, units, tenants, and leases, which properties already exist (units are added to them), and which rows are skipped and why. Nothing is written yet.
- Import — rows import with a progress bar. Afterward you choose which tenants to invite to their portal — no emails are sent during the import itself.
Safe to re-run
The importer never modifies existing records. If you run the same sheet twice — a double-click, a retry after a network hiccup, an updated sheet with old rows still in it — already-imported units are simply skipped. You can import in batches with total confidence.
After the import
- Review each property page and add photos, amenities, and any missing postal codes.
- Invite tenants from the import summary (or later from each tenant's page). Tenants get portal access to pay rent, message you, and submit maintenance.
- Active leases created by the import are already wired for rent tracking and reminders.