Benefits

This feature enables property operators to systematically capture and charge back damage costs to residents during move-out inspections, with automatic submission to the PMS — directly recovering revenue that was previously missed or inconsistently collected. By role, we expect:

• Admins will benefit from this work as it allows for management of default costs using cost sheets. Multiple properties can be assigned to a single cost sheet, orphaned properties are surfaced in a warning banner, and any new items trigger an email notification to prompt the admin to review.
• Operation Managers, Property Managers, and Maintenance Managers will benefit from this work as resident charges will await their review and approval, preventing incorrect charges from being sent to Accounting.
• Technicians and Inspectors will benefit from this by using a new, simple interface for capturing charges, resident charge selection, and then submitting those for approval with minimal interruption to normal inspection workflows.
• Residents will benefit from this by receiving a clearer inspection report, breaking down charges with photos summarized at the top of the report. Charges will also be billed to them more reliably and quickly, as charges will be automatically sent to the PMS for Accounting to process.
• Accountants will benefit from this by receiving resident charges in the PMS automatically, including key details such as resident name, damage descriptions, resident charge amounts, and a link to the inspection report including photos of damages.

Solution

HappyCo has built an all-new, multi-phased solution that considers the entire end-to-end cost capture workflow from admin setup to end user execution.

The most common usecase for enabling this feature is to capture damage charges at resident move-out, but your company can use this to capture damages during any inspection type. 

The work is being delivered in 3 phases. Each phase will deliver incremental value, meaning customers can adopt at any phase and see real, impactful value.

Phases

1. Cost Sheets & Cost Capture: Available in Early Access
2. Approval Workflow: Available in Early Access
3. Integrated Resident Charges
   • Integration with Yardi: Estimated Early Access on 5/18/26
   • Integration with Entrata: Estimated Early Access on 6/01/26
   • Integration with RealPage: Estimated Early Access on 6/29/26
   • Integration with ResMan: Estimated Early Access on TBD
   • Integration with AppFolio: Estimated Early Access on TBD
   • Integration with MRI: Estimated Early Access on TBD

Setup & Configuration

Using the Cost Capture workflow requires two pieces of setup: 1) Modification to your existing inspection templates, and 2) configuration of HappyCo's all-new Cost Sheets.

Updating Inspection Templates

Navigate to the gear icon in Happy Property Maintenance, then select "Templates". From here search for, and select, the template or templates for which you'd like the cost capture workflow enabled. After clicking into the template, you will see a new setting called "Cost Capture Workflow Enabled". Flip the toggle on for each template that you'd like to capture charges with:
 

Once enabled, and by default, you will see a series of red X's displaying above each rating for each inspection item:

This is intentional, and we will address these red X's further into the setup process. Now that you have enabled Cost Capture on the template(s) you can move on to configuring your cost sheets.

Cost Sheets

View the Interactive Training Video Here! 🎥

HappyCo now offers cost sheets to be created and managed within the platform! Navigate to Admin Center and click on the new navigation button called "Cost Sheets":

By default, no cost sheets will be created. Click "New Cost Sheet" in the top right corner to create your first cost sheet. You will be asked to download the .xlsx template:

After downloading, open the spreadsheet in your favorite editor. You will notice the first four columns are locked and do not allow you to update any information. This is intentional. The only columns you need to edit are the Cost and Allow Custom Cost columns:

When setting Allow Custom Cost to true, this will allow the inspector user to override the default value. If it is set to false, the default value cannot be overridden. 

💡 Tip - You may want to allow a custom cost for items marked as Repair, as repair damage can vary drastically depending on the amount of damage. However, you may not want to allow for custom costs when an item is marked as Replace based on costs outlined in the lease agreement or knowing the true cost to replace. 

It is not necessary to add a custom cost for every field, and for any field where default costs don't apply, simply leave the value as 0.00. Once you have filled all of the cost fields that you would like, save the file and upload it back into the Cost Sheet workflow:

After uploading, you will be prompted to name your cost sheet. You can also optionally mark the cost sheet as the default:

💡 Tip - Many customers prefer to create cost sheets by region or class, as pricing for parts and replacements vary by region or by quality. You can also create a cost sheet for one specific property, so if you have one property that sits in a vary expensive area, like Orange County, CA, then you can have custom defaults set for just that property.

Once you create  your cost sheets, you will see them listed on the cost sheet landing page:

Editing Line Items

When on the Cost Sheets landing page, click on any cost sheet to open the cost sheet menu. From here, select Edit Line Items:

The Edit Line Items page allows you to view, search for, and edit individual items on-the-fly. To edit, select the Default Cost field to in-line edit, or select the Custom Cost toggle:

Edits made here only apply to the individual cost sheet that you are editing. This is intentional as each cost sheet it meant to house unique default values. To quickly find an item, try using the search bar (ex. wanting to update the default costs for all doors):

💡 Tip - you can also use the filters for more granular combinations of searching:

Reviewing New Line Items

After creating your first cost sheet, there are multiple scenarios where your cost sheets will have new line items to review. These are:

• Cost capture workflow is enabled on any additional inspection template in the future
• Line items are edited or added on any inspection template with cost capture already enabled 

When either of these scenarios happen, all admins will be notified via email:

Users will also see a notification banner on the Cost Sheets landing page, along with an Action Required icon next to each cost sheet with items still pending review:

Open up each cost sheet to see another banner notification with the option to Review Line Items:

Clicking on the Review Line Items button will open a modal and allow you to enter in all default costs and enable Custom Cost for each item:

Click Finish, then the system will remove the banner notification from that cost sheet, as well as update the Cost Sheets landing page:

Once new line items for all cost sheets have been reviewed, all notification banners and badges will be removed. Another way to verify that all line items have been reviewed and added to your cost sheets is by navigating to your inspection template, opening each section, and confirming that all ratings for each line item are showing a green checkmark:

Renaming a Cost Sheet

On the cost sheet menu, select Rename Cost Sheet:

From there you will be prompted to rename the cost sheet:

💡 Tip - If you accidentally rename a cost sheet the same name as an existing cost sheet, HappyCo will warn you and prompt you to change the name.

Duplicating a Cost Sheet

There may be times when duplicating a cost sheet is easier than creating a new one from scratch. Use the Duplicate Cost Sheet feature for this:
 

When clicking "Duplicate" you will be prompted to name the duplicate cost sheet, which will copy over all line items with their saved values and custom cost selections. Properties must be manually assigned:
 

Assigning Properties to a Cost Sheet

Select the Assign Properties feature to see a list of properties that are already assigned to the cost sheet. After initial cost sheet creation this list will be empty. Click the Assign Properties button to add properties to the cost sheet:

A modal will appear that will show 3 statuses for any property - selected for this cost sheet (purple checkbox), assigned to another cost sheet (grey checkbox), or unassigned (white checkbox). Click any white checkbox to assign the property to the cost sheet, or click any purple box to unassign the property. The grey checkbox is not clickable and you must navigate to the assigned cost sheet to unassign the property before being able to assign it to another cost sheet. This is intentional to prevent property mis-assignment:

💡 Tip - The system will serve up any unassigned (orphaned) properties in a notification banner on the Cost Sheets landing page:

Click the Assign Cost Sheets button to open a modal which allows you to quick-assign orphaned properties:

Setting a Default Cost Sheet

The default cost sheet is assigned to any future-provisioned property, so that as your portfolio grows you can rest assured that some default costs are being captured for all properties. The very first cost sheet you create will automatically be assigned as the default. If you would like to assign another cost sheet as the default, select the Use as Default button on the individual cost sheet menu. A confirmation modal will display with some additional information:

💡 Tip - Once the default has been changed, the cost sheet title will show a default icon and the option to make default will be disabled:

Deleting a Cost Sheet

To delete a cost sheet, open the cost sheet menu and select the Delete button. The system will not allow you to delete the cost sheet if 1) the cost sheet is set as the default, or 2) there is any property assigned to the cost sheet:

After ensuring both criteria have been met, you will be allowed to delete the cost sheet, but beware - this action cannot be undone:

Cost Capture

Cost capture is the workflow used when performing an inspection to capture costs, mark as resident charges, and review those charges after completing the inspection. Cost capture starts with the inspection template. After enabling cost capture, as shown above, you will want to confirm that inspection items are synced and configured on your cost sheets. This is displayed in your inspection template with a red or green icon per rating:

💡 Tip - Hover over the tooltip to find a link to review pending cost sheet items. Once the items are reviewed and added to your cost sheets, then the rating status will change from red to green.

Once the template has been enabled and the items are added to your cost sheets, your team is ready to start using Cost Capture on your inspections. 

Using Cost Capture on Inspections

Now that your inspection templates are ready, simply create or schedule your inspections as normal! As the inspections are created, if the inspection is built using a template with Cost Capture enabled, then the inspector will see a new user workflow appear during the inspection process. 

*Note - When Cost Capture is enabled on the inspection template, this automatically enables cost capture on both the desktop and mobile experiences.

Let's try it out:

1. Open an inspection that uses cost capture on either your desktop or mobile device. Select any item and rating for which a default cost is set on the cost sheet. A new Item Cost modal should appear:

(Desktop view)

(Mobile view)
 

2. If Custom Cost was enabled for the item rating, you can update the cost. You can also select between whether it is a full resident charge, a split charge, or if it should be stored as a cost to the property (selecting "No" on "Is this a resident charge" will classify the charge as a property cost):

When selecting "Split" you can choose between a dollar split or a percentage:

(Desktop view)

(Mobile view)

3. Complete the inspection to display the new Review Charges modal! This modal provides a wealth of information in a simple format for your inspector to confirm and save, or to submit for approval if your company has assigned the new approver permission (more information on approvals below). All inspection costs are shown, as well as how much of the cost will be covered by the property vs. charged to the resident. There is a summary of charges at bottom and you can select between the current primary resident or the most recent past primary resident to control who will be charged for resident damages:

(Desktop view)

(Mobile view)

4. After saving the charges, you can generate the inspection report. Notice a new section at the top of the report called "Costs". This pulls all inspection costs to the center stage for your site team to review together with the resident. Costs are listed cleanly, and resident charges are easily identified along with images of the damages:

*Note - This does not remove the charge line items from each section below, but simply summarizes all costs and charges at top. The remainder of the report is generated as normal. 

Voilå! You have completed the Cost Capture workflow! Below are outlined some optional workflows that you can implement for your teams.

Adding the Approval Workflow

Some customers may prefer to add resident charge approvals to the Cost Capture workflow. This is very simple to enable, yet it provides a rich set of features related to approvals. To enable, simply navigate to Admin Center > Users > Roles and assign one or more users the new permission called "Approve Resident Charges":

If there is at least one approver with access to the property that is performing the inspection that is using Cost Capture, then all approval features will show. 

Notifications for Pending Charges

As an Approver, when on the Inspections page, you will see a banner notification and a bell icon next to each inspection with pending resident charges:

To view all inspections with pending charges, click the "View Inspections" button in the banner:

Click on any inspection. A notification banner shows in the right sidebar, along with a Charges section:

Clicking on either "Review & Approve" in the banner, or the "Approve Charges" button in the sidebar will open the Approve Charges modal:

*Note - Today the Approve Charges modal only appears on the desktop view. There is no mobile option to approve charges.

Approvers can update any value in the modal, and they can also update the resident selection. After reviewing and making any changes, click the Approve Charges button to save the charges and to remove them from the list of pending charges. You can now open the modal again to review what was approved and to generate an updated inspection report:

When the approval flow is enabled, and prior to the charges being approved, users can generate an inspection report and the system will display a banner indicating that charges are pending approval:

After approval, when the report is regenerated, the banner will update to show that the pending charges have been approved:

Resident Charges Integrated with the PMS

 📣 Coming Soon! HappyCo will soon be integrated with Yard, Entrata, and RealPage to provide a seamless process for submitting resident charges directly to the resident ledger in the PMS! Check back periodically for more information.