Documentation
How tribe.one actually works — setup, roles, money, decisions, safety and settings. Written from the product, not the pitch. No account needed to read any of it.
These guides describe the app as it behaves today, page by page: what a resident sees, what a treasurer can do, and what the system refuses. Where a rule is enforced in the software — a vote that cannot be changed, a levy cycle that will not double-bill, a fine that cannot be imposed before the reply window closes — the guide says so.
Start where you are
I run the community
Create the community, work through the first-week checklist and get the committee onto the system.
Getting started →I keep the books
Set up a levy, run the cycle, take payments, follow up arrears and answer "what do I owe?".
Treasury and dues →I live here
Your dues, your notices, the calendar, the document library and how to report a fault.
Day-to-day →I work at the gate
Issue a visitor pass, check someone in and out, and see what the guardhouse board expects of you.
Safety and the gate →Every guide
Getting started
Create your community, finish the first-week setup and invite the first residents.
Read the guide →Roles and permissions
Who can see and do what, and which modules your community type and plan switch on.
Read the guide →Module reference
Every module: what it does, who it is for and where it lives in the app.
Read the guide →Treasury, levies and dues
Levies, contributions, payments, arrears, statements, approvals and rental billing.
Read the guide →Governance, voting and meetings
Proposals, the five voting methods, who decides, meetings, minutes and documents.
Read the guide →Safety, patrols and the gate
Panic, incidents, visitor passes, the patrol clock and patrol payroll.
Read the guide →Day-to-day in the app
Chat, notices, calendar, projects, work orders, marketplace, parcels and stokvels.
Read the guide →Settings, billing and access
Community settings, plan and modules, API keys, notifications, security and support.
Read the guide →I run several communities
The read-only portfolio console: money, members and each community’s own metric in one view, with no writes anywhere.
Portfolio and enterprise →What the docs cover
Eighteen modules, one audit trail. These guides cover all of them, plus the parts of the app that are not modules: the dashboard, the calendar, the inbox, search, settings and the audit log every community gets whether it switches anything on or not.
Questions we get first
Do we need a card to try it?
No. A paid plan starts on a fourteen-day trial that takes no card and charges nothing until day 15. The free plan never asks for one at all.
Can we look around before signing up?
Yes — the demo community is a sandbox with sample data and needs no account. It is deliberately a real community rather than a video, so what you click is what a resident clicks.
Where does our money actually sit?
In your community's own bank account. tribe.one raises the charges, records what arrives and reconciles it against your statement; it never holds the funds. Every screen that mentions payment is describing a record, not a transaction the platform processed.
Can ordinary residents see the ledger?
Yes. Anyone in the community with the treasury module on can read the full ledger, and transparency is the reason. Editing, approving and voiding are limited to the treasurer and admin.
How do we bring in 200 members without a CSV?
Generate a join code and broadcast it: a code admits people instantly, with an expiry and an optional use limit. The join link with an approval queue is the safer option when you want to see each name first.
Does it work on a phone?
Everything runs in the browser — phone, tablet or desktop — with no install. The surfaces people use in the field (the guardhouse board, the panic button, the patrol clock) are built to be used one-handed.
What happens to our data if we leave?
An admin can download the community's records as JSON from Settings. Exports exist so that leaving is a decision rather than a negotiation.
Will everyone be spammed by notifications?
No. Preferences are per person and per category, with quiet hours, an email digest and a monthly summary. Critical and emergency messages bypass all of it — which is why a panic reaches someone who has muted everything.
Is there an API?
Yes: a REST API with per-community keys carrying read and write scopes, plus signed outbound webhooks, an export endpoint and a public plan catalogue. There is no connector marketplace, and this page will not pretend otherwise — see integrations.
When the docs are not enough
Every guide is written to be read once and used afterwards as a reference — but a rule that matters to your community deserves a straight answer. Ask us: contact the team, or raise a ticket inside the app under Settings → Support, where it reaches the people who can read the record you are asking about.
When a module changes, the guide changes with it. If a page here describes something the app no longer does, that is a bug — tell us and it gets fixed.
Read it, then try it.
A sandbox community with sample data, no account needed. Then 14 days free on any plan when you are ready.