Setting up Allotmin for the first time

Allotmin works best if you put things in in this order. Each step makes the next one easier, and the last one is the only one you cannot easily undo.

1. Add your plots

Start with the plots, because members get attached to them. Put in the plot number, the size and the yearly fee for each one. If you have them in a spreadsheet, you can import the whole lot at once instead of typing them.

Do not worry about getting the fees exactly right yet — you can change them at any point before you open your first billing year.

2. Add your members

Same again: type them in, or import your existing list. The only thing Allotmin insists on is a name. Everything else — email address, phone number, address, the date they signed their tenancy — is optional and can be filled in later.

3. Give members their plots

This is what joins the two lists together, and it is what tells Allotmin who should be billed. See giving a member a plot.

4. Open your billing year

Once your plots have the right fees on them and your members are on the right plots, you are ready to open a billing year. That takes a copy of who holds what and works out what everybody owes.

Leave this one until the first three are right. Opening a year fixes your billing dates for good, and while you can start over, it is not something you want to do twice.

What you can leave until later

Everything else. Waiting list, email, inspections, keys and deposits, your website, extra logins for the committee — all of it can wait until you need it, and none of it depends on being set up early.