How do I prepare my payment records for Meses?
Before reconciling, choose the workbook that holds the property's residents, units and expected dues, and check that the selected month has those dues filled in. Meses reads your spreadsheet the way you already use it; you do not need a new format, only month data that is readable and complete.
1. Choose the right source
- Choose the workbook or file that contains the residents, units and expected dues for the property and month you selected.
- It can be a Google Sheet or an Excel workbook stored in Google Drive.
- Keep the original spreadsheet intact; Meses does not change it without your approval.
2. Check the selected month
- Check that the selected month has expected dues.
- Make sure resident names and unit numbers are readable.
- If the month is missing dues, Meses tells you instead of inventing them.
- Any amount that does not come from the chosen month is flagged in the results, so you know where it came from.
- If you are adding new fees or adjustments for the month, do it before reconciling.
3. Let Meses validate the layout
- Meses discovers records from the workbook structure, not from a fixed sheet name.
- If it cannot identify them confidently, it stops and may suggest sheets to try.
- You can pick one of those sheets and retry.
- Meses will not guess a column mapping: it would rather stop than reconcile against the wrong data.
- Keep one workbook per property, so each month always points to the same source.
- If you are unsure about the Google connection, see how to connect Google Sheets.