Bringing an existing building in
You do not need months of history to start. Doorbook needs one thing per room — what the meters read today — and the first bill measures from there.
This is the path for a landlord moving off paper or a spreadsheet partway through the year. Nothing about Doorbook requires you to have been using it since January.
Start from today's readings
Walk the building and type what each meter face says today. That figure becomes the baseline for the first bill — Doorbook measures consumption from whatever you enter, so do it on the day you intend to start billing from, not a week either side.
Rent, rates and defaults
Rent, internet and per-unit electricity and water rates go in per room. The defaults you set during onboarding fill each new room in for you, and anything unusual is overridden on the room itself.
Arrears you are already owed
There is no field for an opening balance. Put the amount on the first bill as a positive adjustment with a note saying what it is — last month's rent, an unpaid water charge, whatever the tenant still owes. The adjustment is cleared when the cycle closes, so it is charged exactly once.
What you cannot back-fill
Past months cannot be entered retroactively. History accumulates from the first cycle you close in Doorbook, and the analytics are honest about only knowing what they saw.
Read next
Set the building up once
Set up your building in Doorbook: choose how you get paid, set your default electricity and water rates, and add your first room with its opening meter readings.
NextReading the meters
How Doorbook turns meter readings into billable units: type the counter value on the meter face, and the app subtracts last month's figure and multiplies by your rate.