Four steps to move a hostel or PG off a paper register. For a 30-to-50 bed property, expect about an hour — most of it adding rooms.
The most common reason owners give up in week one is trying to back-fill two years of old records before they start. Do not. Add only the residents currently staying, let this month’s dues generate, and run the app alongside your register for one month. Compare the two at month end. After that, stop writing in the register.
Create the hostel or PG, then add floors, rooms and beds with the sharing type for each room, from single up to 9-sharing. Occupancy and vacancy update as you go.
Share a QR code or a self check-in link. The resident fills in their own details and KYC documents from their phone, Aadhaar OCR reads the details, and you review and approve.
Monthly dues are generated automatically for every occupied bed. Record each payment as cash, UPI or bank, and a PDF receipt is produced that you can send straight to the resident.
Turn on rent reminders, receipt links, welcome messages and complaint updates so residents hear from the app instead of from you at 11pm.
Expect about an hour for a 30-to-50 bed property. Adding floors, rooms and beds is the bulk of it. Residents can be added by sharing a self check-in link so they fill in their own details and KYC, which removes most of the typing. Dues generate automatically once beds are occupied.
Do not try to import years of past records first. Start from the current month.
Start with one property and one month. Add the floors, rooms and beds, add only the residents currently staying, let the app generate this month’s dues, then record every payment in the app as it comes in — keeping the register in parallel for that one month. At month end, compare the two. After that, stop writing in the register.
Owners who fail at this usually try to back-fill two years of history first, get overwhelmed, and go back to the notebook.
Hostel Mitra is published by Zubeida Software Services, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Contact: support.hostelmitra@gmail.com or +91 94941 42694.
Get Hostel Mitra on Google Play or open the Hostel Mitra web app. A native iOS app is not published yet.