Managing rental properties traditionally involves a messy web of disconnected tools. Landlords and property managers constantly struggle with:
- Scattered Data: Tracking leases in Excel, communicating over WhatsApp, and managing files in Google Drive.
- Manual Rent Collection: Chasing down late payments, manually calculating late fees, and reconciling bank transfers.
- Lost Maintenance Requests: Repair requests get buried in text messages, leading to unhappy tenants and delayed fixes.
- Lack of Transparency: Tenants have no central place to view their lease, payment history, or maintenance status.
- Time-Consuming Paperwork: Manually generating rent invoices and payment receipts every month.
HostFlow is a modern, unified SaaS platform designed to put your rental business on autopilot. It bridges the gap between landlords and tenants by bringing properties, leases, payments, and maintenance into one seamless, automated dashboard.
Whether you're managing a 5-unit apartment building or a portfolio of 50+ properties, HostFlow eliminates the busywork so you can focus on growth.
- Create and manage multiple properties and their respective units in one place.
- Track occupancy status, rent amounts, and unit details instantly.
- Landlords/Admins: Complete control over properties, financial reports, and tenant management.
- Tenants: A self-service portal to view active leases, pay rent securely, download receipts, and submit maintenance requests.
- Razorpay Integration: Tenants can pay rent online via UPI, Cards, or Netbanking.
- Automated Rent Generation: System automatically generates rent dues on the 1st of every month.
- Smart Late Fees: Automatically calculates and applies late fees for overdue payments.
- PDF Receipts: Instantly generates professional, downloadable PDF payment receipts.
- Tenants can submit repair requests with priority levels and photo attachments.
- Threaded comments allow landlords and tenants to communicate directly on the ticket.
- Track ticket status from Open to In Progress to Resolved.
- Visual dashboards featuring Chart.js integration.
- Track revenue trends, outstanding balances, and occupancy rates at a glance.
- Export payment histories to CSV for accounting purposes.
- Auto-reminders for upcoming rent and lease expirations.
- Real-time in-app notifications for ticket updates and payment confirmations.
- Comprehensive Audit Logs track every critical action (who did what, and when).
- Strict tenant data isolation.
- Onboarding: Log in and navigate to the
Propertiestab. Add your building/property details. - Add Units: Under your new property, add units (e.g., Apt 101, Apt 102), setting the base rent for each.
- Invite Tenants: Go to
Tenantsand add a new tenant. They will receive credentials to log in. - Sign Leases: Create a
Leaselinking the Tenant to a Unit, setting the start/end dates. - Sit Back: HostFlow will now automatically bill the tenant on the 1st of the month, apply late fees if they miss the deadline, and notify you when they pay seamlessly via Razorpay.
- Manage Day-to-Day: Use the
DashboardandReportsto monitor your cash flow, and check theTicketsboard to resolve maintenance requests.
- Log In: Access the clean, mobile-responsive Tenant Portal.
- Dashboard: Immediately see if rent is due.
- Pay Rent: Click "Pay Now" to open the Razorpay checkout. Once paid, instantly download your PDF receipt.
- Need a Repair?: Click "Submit Maintenance Ticket", upload a photo of that leaky sink, set it to "High Priority", and track the landlord's response in real-time.
- Backend Framework: Django 4.x
- Database: SQLite (Local) / PostgreSQL (Production)
- Asynchronous Tasks: Celery + Redis (Message Broker & Cache)
- Frontend: HTML5, Bootstrap 5, Chart.js
- Payment Gateway: Razorpay API
- Document Generation: ReportLab (PDFs)
- Environment Management: python-decouple
Follow these steps to get HostFlow running on your local machine.
- Python 3.8+
- Redis Server (Must be installed and running on default port
6379for background tasks)
git clone <your-repo-url>
cd HostFlow
python -m venv envv
source envv/scripts/activate # On Windows use: envv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txtCreate a .env file in the root directory alongside manage.py and configure the following:
DEBUG=True
SECRET_KEY=your_super_secret_django_key_here
ALLOWED_HOSTS=127.0.0.1,localhost
# Razorpay Credentials
RAZORPAY_KEY_ID=your_razorpay_key_id
RAZORPAY_KEY_SECRET=your_razorpay_secret
# Email Config (optional for local dev, used for notifications)
EMAIL_HOST_USER=your_email@gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=your_app_passwordpython manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser # Create your admin/landlord accountYou will need three terminal windows to run the full stack locally.
Terminal 1: Start Django Server
python manage.py runserverTerminal 2: Start Celery Worker (Task Executor)
# Windows
celery -A website worker -l info -P eventlet
# Mac/Linux
celery -A website worker --loglevel=infoTerminal 3: Start Celery Beat (Task Scheduler)
celery -A website beat --loglevel=infoYour application is now live at http://127.0.0.1:8000!
- Production DB: Full migration to PostgreSQL.
- Cloud Storage: Integration with AWS S3 via
django-storagesfor lease documents and maintenance images. - DRF API: Building out a RESTful API using Django Rest Framework for a future mobile app.
- SMS Notifications: Twilio integration for instant SMS billing alerts.
Built with ❤️ to make property management painless.