Smapey Boarding House Manager Guide
Everything you need to set up your rooms and beds, register tenants, handle move-ins and move-outs, issue rent and utility bills, track maintenance with QR reporting, and read the occupancy dashboard, step by step.
1. Set Up Your Boarding House
Create your Smapey account
Sign up at smapey.com and select Boarding House Manager as your product. Your private workspace is created instantly - no credit card required on the free plan.
Add your rooms
Go to the Rooms page and click Add Room. Enter the room name (e.g. Room 101), the type (Bedspace, Shared Room, or Private Room) the floor, and the monthly rate. Each room appears as a card showing who's inside and which slots are free.
Add beds to bedspace rooms
On a Bedspace room card, click Add Bed to name each bed (e.g. Lower A, Upper A) and optionally set a different rate per bed - handy when lower decks cost more. A bed without its own rate uses the room's default. The room's capacity is simply its number of beds.
Invite your team
Go to Settings → Team and invite a co-owner or assistant by email. They can log in with their own account and access the same live system. Assign Admin or Member roles based on their level of access.
Configure your currency symbol
In Settings → Organization, confirm your currency symbol (₱ for Philippine Peso). This appears on all bills and the revenue dashboard.
2. Register Tenants
Open the Tenants page
Navigate to Boarding House → Tenants from the sidebar. This is where all your tenant records live.
Click Add Tenant
Enter the tenant's full name, contact number, and email address. Add an emergency contact name and phone number - important if you ever need to reach someone on their behalf.
Add ID information
Record the tenant's government ID type and ID number for verification purposes. This stays stored in their profile and is useful for move-out documentation or disputes.
Open a tenant's ledger
Click Ledger on any tenant for their full statement of account - original move-in date, deposit with paid/unpaid status, every stay and transfer they've made, and a month-by-month payment table with billed, paid, balance, and totals.
3. Move-ins, Move-outs & Stay History
Move a tenant in from the Rooms page
Click any vacant bed or slot on a room card and the move-in form opens with the room (and bed) already selected. Pick the tenant, set the move-in date, and confirm the rate - it defaults from the bed or room. Record the deposit amount and whether it's been paid.
Move a tenant out from the Rooms page
Click an occupied bed, avatar, or occupant on a room card to see their details (phone, move-in date, rate, and deposit status) then click Move Out. The bed or slot is freed instantly and the dashboard occupancy updates.
Transfer a tenant to another room or bed
In that same occupant popup, click Transfer. Pick the target room and bed, the date, and optionally a new rate - it defaults from the new spot. The old stay closes, a new one opens, and the deposit carries over automatically.
Swap two tenants
Want to trade an upper deck for a lower deck, or exchange two rooms, even with zero vacancy? In the Transfer dialog choose 'Swap With Another Tenant' - both tenants trade places in one step, each keeping their own deposit and taking their new spot's rate.
Review Stay History
Navigate to Boarding House → Stay History for the full ledger of stays. Filter by Active or Moved Out to see who lived in which room and bed, for how long, at what rate, and their deposit status. Your paper trail for disputes.
Fix a record
Click Edit on any row in Stay History to correct the move-in date, monthly rate, deposit amount or paid status, bed assignment, or notes. On moved-out records you can also fix the move-out date. Rate changes only affect future bills.
4. Rent Billing
Open the Rent Bills page
Navigate to Boarding House → Rent Bills from the sidebar. This is where you create and manage all monthly rent bills.
Generate the month's bills in one click
Click Generate and pick the month - a bill is created for every active tenant, each due on their own move-in day of the month (or tick 'one due day for everyone'). Already-billed tenants and anyone who moved in later are skipped automatically.
Tenants get an emailed statement automatically
The moment a bill is created, every tenant with an email receives a clean billing statement: rent, their share of the room's utilities, the total, and the due date. In bedspace and shared rooms, utilities are split evenly per tenant with the computation shown (e.g. 'Electricity - P555 / 3 tenants'). Tip: enter utilities first, then Generate, so statements go out complete.
Record a payment
Click Pay on any unpaid or partially paid bill. Enter the amount received and select the payment method: Cash, GCash, Maya, Card, or Bank Transfer. If the amount is less than the total, the bill is marked Partial and the remaining balance is tracked until it's settled.
Overdue is automatic
Any bill past its due date with an outstanding balance flips to Overdue on its own the moment you open the Rent Bills page or dashboard - no button to press. The dashboard's Overdue panel lists tenant, room, due date, and amount.
Fix mistakes safely
Created a bill by accident? Delete removes it - but only while no payment has been recorded. Once money is received, the bill becomes part of your records and can't be deleted, protecting your payment history.
5. Utility Billing
Open the Utility Bills page
Navigate to Boarding House → Utility Bills from the sidebar. Utility bills are created separately from rent so tenants can clearly see what they owe for electricity, water, or internet.
Create a utility bill
Click New Utility Bill. Select the room, choose the utility type (Electricity, Water, Internet, or Other), enter the billing month and amount. Pick 'Other' and a Label field appears - name it Cable TV, Garbage, or Association dues and that name shows on the bill instead of a generic 'Other'.
Enter the whole month in seconds with Quick Fill
Click Import Excel and the Quick Fill table appears with all your rooms listed - pick the utility, type the amounts (leave blank to skip a room), and save. Prefer a spreadsheet? Switch to the Excel tab, download the template pre-filled with your room names, fill it in any app, and upload it back. Re-importing never duplicates bills.
Record utility payments
Same as rent - click Pay, enter the amount received, and select the payment method. Partial utility payments are tracked just like rent.
Review utility history
A tenant's profile shows all their utility bills alongside their rent bills in a single view - so you can see their full payment history at a glance without switching pages.
6. Maintenance & QR Reporting
Report an issue
Navigate to Boarding House → Maintenance and click Report Issue. Enter a title (e.g. 'Leaking faucet in Room 2'), select the room, choose a category - Plumbing, Electrical, Appliance, Furniture, Pest Control, Cleaning, Structural, or Other - and a priority from Low to Urgent.
Work the request
Click Start when the repair begins - the request moves to In Progress. When it's fixed, click Resolve and optionally enter the repair cost. Resolved costs are summed on the dashboard so you know what maintenance costs you each month.
Print a QR poster for each room
On any room card, click the QR icon, then Print Poster, and stick it inside the room. Tenants scan it with their phone camera (no app or login) and fill in a short form: name, issue type, what's wrong, and up to 3 photos of the problem.
Receive reports instantly
QR reports land on your Maintenance page tagged 'Via QR' and you get an in-app notification the moment one is submitted. If the reporter's name matches a current tenant, the report links to their profile automatically.
Tenants see the room's report history
The report page also lists the room's recent reports - who reported what, when, and whether it's Open, In Progress, or Resolved. Tenants can see a fix is already on the way, so you don't get the same issue reported five times.
Cancel or reopen
Cancel requests that turn out to be non-issues. If a 'fixed' problem comes back, open the request and click Reopen - the full history stays intact.
7. Cashflow & Expenses
Open the Cashflow page
Navigate to Boarding House → Cashflow. It's your cashbook: every peso in and out, in date order, with a running balance - like the ledger notebook, but it writes itself. Pick any month with the month selector.
Money in is automatic
Rent payments, utility payments, and deposits you've recorded appear as income rows on their payment dates. No re-typing, no copy-paste from other pages.
Record expenses in seconds
Click Add Expense for money going out - repairs, replacements (a new electric fan), supplies, utilities you pay yourself, or anything else. Description, category, amount, date, and optionally the room. Expenses can be edited or deleted anytime.
Maintenance costs flow in automatically
Resolve a maintenance request with a repair cost and it appears in the cashflow as money out on the resolution date - no double entry.
Read the bottom line
The top cards show Money In, Money Out, and Net for the selected month - so you always know whether the boarding house actually made money, not just what was collected.
8. Tenant Payments & QR Reporting
Set your payment QR
On the Rent Bills page, open the Payment QR settings and upload your GCash or bank QR code, plus a short payment note (e.g. your account name and number). This is the QR tenants actually pay to.
Print the room's two-QR poster
From any room card, click the QR icon and Print Poster. The poster carries two QRs side by side: one to PAY (your GCash/bank QR) and one to REPORT the payment. A tenant with a single phone pays and reports from the same sheet - no app, no login.
Tenants see their exact balance
When a tenant scans the report QR and types their name, they instantly see their balance for the month: rent plus their own share of each utility. In shared and bedspace rooms every utility is split by the number of active tenants, with the math shown (e.g. 'Electric - P2,000 / 2'). The amount is filled in automatically so there's no guessing.
They choose a month if more than one is open
If a tenant has more than one unpaid month, a month picker appears so they can pay a single month at a time. With one open month, that month is shown as a label so they always know exactly what they're paying for.
They report the payment
The tenant taps 'I Paid My Bill', keeps the auto-computed amount, picks how they paid (GCash, Maya, Bank, or Cash), attaches a screenshot of the receipt, and submits. It's instant and needs no account.
Verify from the Payments Inbox
New reports land in the Payments Inbox on your Rent Bills page with a live unread badge that updates without refreshing. Open a report to see the name, amount, method, screenshot, and which month it's for.
Post it in one tap
Click Post and the payment is applied to the right bills automatically - rent and each utility get this tenant's fixed share, so a roommate's payment never changes what anyone else owes. The report is marked Posted and the bills update. Reject any report that's a mistake or a duplicate.
9. Dashboard & Analytics
Open the Dashboard
Navigate to Boarding House → Dashboard from the sidebar. This is your home screen - it loads every time you open the app and gives you the full picture of your boarding house at a glance.
Read the stat cards
The top row shows: Total Rooms, Active Rooms, Active Tenants, Occupancy Rate (%), Overdue Bills count, Unpaid Bills count, Total Capacity (occupied / total), and Open Maintenance. These update in real time as you add rooms, tenants, and payments.
Check monthly revenue
Below the stat cards are three revenue cards for the current month: Rent Collected, Utilities Collected, and Total Collected (the combined sum). This tells you exactly how much cash came in this month and from which source.
Read the 6-month revenue chart
The stacked bar chart shows the last 6 months of collections - orange bars for rent, cyan bars for utilities, stacked per month. Hover on a bar to see the exact amounts. Use this to spot seasonal patterns and set rent collection targets.
Review overdue bills
The Overdue Rent Bills table shows every rent bill past its due date - tenant name, room, billing month, due date, and amount. Click through to the bill directly from this panel to record a payment.
Track open maintenance
The Open Maintenance panel lists unresolved repair issues sorted by priority, with an urgent counter - so the leaking faucet never gets forgotten. Resolved repair costs for the month are tracked alongside revenue.
Monitor move-ins and move-outs
The bottom section shows Recent Move-ins (active tenancies) and Recent Move-outs (tenancies ended this month) side by side - so you can track tenant turnover at a glance.
Quick Tips
Things that will save you time once you're up and running.
Add rooms and their beds before moving tenants in, a bedspace room needs at least one bed before it can accept a move-in.
Record a new move-in every time a tenant arrives, even a returning tenant. Past stays are never deleted, so your Stay History stays accurate for disputes.
Print the QR poster for every room on day one. Tenants report issues the moment they spot them, before a small leak becomes a big repair bill.
Upload your GCash QR once, then print each room's two-QR poster. Tenants pay and report from the same sheet, and every payment lands in your inbox for one-tap verification, no more chasing screenshots on Messenger.
Issue rent and utility bills as separate entries each month, this makes collections clearer and avoids arguments over what each payment was for.
Check the Overdue Rent Bills panel on the dashboard weekly. The sooner you follow up, the easier it is to collect, don't let overdue accounts accumulate.
Always log the repair cost when resolving a maintenance request, the dashboard sums them monthly so you know your true operating expenses.
Monthly workflow at a glance
What to do at the start of each month to keep your boarding house running smoothly.
Create rent bills
Issue a rent bill for every active tenant - amount, billing month, and due date.
Create utility bills
Issue separate electricity and water bills per tenant based on meter readings or flat allocation.
Record payments
As tenants pay throughout the month, record each payment - cash, GCash, or bank transfer.
Follow up overdue
Check the Overdue Bills panel on the dashboard and follow up with tenants who haven't paid.
Clear maintenance backlog
Work through open maintenance requests - start, resolve, and log repair costs so nothing stays broken for long.
Check revenue trend
Review the 6-month chart to see if rent collected is growing, flat, or declining - and act accordingly.
Ready to get started?
Create your free boarding house account and have your rooms and first rent bills set up today.
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