Several compounds across Lusaka
Owners with staff
You employ people to collect, inspect and coordinate. You need to know the work happened without doing it yourself.
Notes for Zambian landlords
No. 16 · Portfolios run by staff
Updated September 2026
No. 16 · Larger portfolios
When you stop being the one doing the work
Somewhere between fifteen units and fifty, the job changes. You stop knowing every tenant’s name and start managing the people who do. The questions change with it: not ‘has Flat 4 paid?’ but ‘which of these properties actually makes money, and can I show that somebody did what they said they did?’ Most property software answers the first question very well and the second not at all.
In short
- Properties ranked by what they actually earn
- Owner and investor statements, produced not assembled
- Unlimited staff accounts, each scoped to properties
- A dated record of every action, by name
02 · Side by side
Forty units, two ways
Run from a group chat
- Gross rent mistaken for profit
- Statements rebuilt in a spreadsheet each month
- A rent that changed, with no record of who
- Turnover costs invisible until the year ends
In Tezeka
- Net profit ranked property by property
- Statements issued on the first, automatically
- Every change attributed and timestamped
- Vacancy and turnover counted as lost income
Which of these is actually earning?
At this size the portfolio stops being a list of tenancies and becomes a set of assets, each with a return. Properties are ranked by net profit rather than by rent collected, so maintenance-hungry stock stops hiding behind a healthy gross figure.
Owner and investor statements are produced from that same record rather than rebuilt in a spreadsheet, and they go out on a schedule instead of whenever somebody finds the time.
04 · How it works
A month across forty units
The work is distributed. The record is not.
- 1 Oct
Statements go out to owners from the record, not from a spreadsheet.
- 4 Oct
A rent is raised on Rhodes Park 4. Chanda did it, at 14:22, and it says so.
- 11 Oct
A geyser is dispatched within the spend ceiling you set.
- 18 Oct
A tenant moves out. Condition photographed, deposit settled.
- 19 Oct
The unit starts costing money. Vacancy is counted from that day.
- 31 Oct
The portfolio ranks itself by net profit, best and worst named.
You verify; you do not chase
Once staff are doing the work, the owner’s job is to know it was done properly. Staff accounts are scoped to properties, and every action is recorded with who took it and when — the rent that moved, the deposit that was refunded, the vendor who was paid.
Unlimited seats without a record of what those seats did is not a premium feature, it is an unbounded liability. The two belong together, and on the plan ladder they are granted together.
The months a unit earns nothing
A vacant unit is the most expensive thing in a portfolio and the least visible. Vacancy is tracked from the day a tenancy ends, move-out condition and deposit settlement are recorded against the unit, and the gap is counted as lost income rather than quietly absorbed.
Across forty units, a fortnight of avoidable void on each is not a rounding error. It is the difference between two properties’ annual profit.
Moving a portfolio in without retyping it
Properties are imported in bulk and checked against your plan in one pass, and historical payment records can be brought in from a spreadsheet so that arrears, tenant reliability and year-on-year figures start with history rather than from zero.
Nothing you bring in is held hostage. Full payment history export is available on every plan, including the entry one.
08 · Who this is for
Three operators we had in mind
A family holding
Property held for other family members
You run it; siblings or parents own a share. Statements are not a nicety, they are how the peace is kept.
Blocks of flats and mixed stock
Operators with uneven portfolios
Some properties carry the rest and it is not obvious which. Ranking by net profit settles the argument.
09 · What changes
What you stop doing by hand
- i
Rebuilding owner statements every month
- ii
Guessing which properties earn their keep
- iii
Asking who changed a rent, and when
- iv
Discovering a long void after the fact
No. 0001
- Date
- Today
- Received from
- You
- For
- 1 unit
- Amount
- K99 a month
Counterfoil. Keep for your records
Start here
Start with the property you have
Solo is K99 a month for 1 unit. Your tenants keep paying you directly by MoMo, Airtel Money or bank transfer. Tezeka never touches your rent.
How many staff accounts do I get?
Seat counts rise with the plan, and the cap lifts entirely on Premier, which also carries the staff audit log. The two are granted together on purpose: unlimited seats without a record of what they did is a liability rather than a feature.
Can staff see everything?
No. Staff work through property-scoped agent accounts and see the properties they are assigned. Your billing, your plan and your owner-level reporting are not visible to them.
Where do owner statements come from?
They are produced from the payment and expense record rather than assembled by hand, and go out on a schedule. Owner statements and the monthly investor statement start on the Portfolio plan.
Can I move an existing portfolio in?
Yes. Properties import in bulk and are checked against your plan in one pass, and historical payment records can be brought in from a spreadsheet so arrears and tenant history do not start from zero.
Is pricing by property or by unit?
By unit. A block of six flats is six units, not one property, because six units is what it takes to run. Per unit, the larger plans cost less than the smaller ones.