Managing lease renewals is one of the repetitive tasks for real estate agencies and property managers. Each lease renewal requires precise updates to tenant information, lease terms, and payment schedules. Manual handling—editing documents for each tenant, copying and pasting dates, updating clauses—can create delays, increase errors, and introduce compliance risks.
ActiveMerge’s Document Generation feature allows agencies to automate lease renewal contracts directly from structured tenant data, ensuring speed, accuracy, and consistency. With a few simple steps, you can generate personalized lease renewal documents for dozens or hundreds of tenants in minutes, saving time while reducing administrative errors.
This tutorial will guide you through the complete process of using ActiveMerge to automate lease renewal contract creation for your real estate agency.
Why Automating Lease Renewals Matters for Real Estate Agencies
Lease renewals are legally binding agreements. Errors, omissions, or delays in this process can cause administrative headaches, tenant dissatisfaction, or even legal exposure. Some of the common challenges of manual lease renewal preparation include:
- Time-consuming processes: Updating individual leases for multiple tenants takes hours every month.
- Risk of errors: Mistakes in tenant names, addresses, dates, or rent amounts can compromise legal validity.
- Compliance risks: Failing to include updated clauses, statutory requirements, or jurisdiction-specific terms.
- Slow turnaround: Delays in sending renewals can frustrate tenants and landlords, potentially impacting retention.
For agencies managing multiple properties or hundreds of tenants, these challenges multiply exponentially. For instance, an agency managing 200 tenants might spend several days each month manually preparing lease renewal contracts—time that could otherwise be spent on client service, inspections, or marketing.
By automating lease renewals, agencies can:
- Standardize contract language across all tenants, ensuring consistency and legal compliance.
- Reduce administrative workload, freeing staff to focus on higher-value tasks such as tenant communications, inspections, or lease negotiations.
- Improve tenant satisfaction by providing faster contract turnaround and professional-looking documents.
- Ensure compliance and accuracy by using a single master template updated centrally and applied to all tenants.
Automation is therefore not just a time-saving convenience—it’s an operational necessity for scalable, professional property management.
What Is ActiveMerge’s Document Generation Feature?
ActiveMerge’s Generate Document workflow enables agencies to automatically create personalized documents by merging structured data with pre-built templates.
For real estate agencies, this means:
- Upload tenant or property data in a spreadsheet.
- Upload a lease renewal template containing placeholders for tenant-specific details.
- Select the output format (PDF, DOCX, PPTX).
- Generate and download fully customized lease renewal contracts instantly.
This eliminates the need for repetitive manual edits while ensuring consistent, professional results for all tenants. ActiveMerge also supports bulk generation, allowing agencies to handle dozens, hundreds, or thousands of lease renewals in one workflow.
Step-by-Step: How to Automate Lease Renewal Contracts
Follow these steps to automate lease renewal contracts efficiently:
Step 1: Register for an ActiveMerge Account
Before generating lease renewal contracts, you need to create an ActiveMerge account:
- Go to the ActiveMerge registration page.
- Sign up using your work email and a secure password.
- Confirm your email address via the verification link sent to your inbox.
- Log in to your ActiveMerge dashboard.
Dashboard Overview:Your dashboard is the central hub for managing all document workflows. Key features include:
- Document Generation – create personalized documents from templates and data.
- Document Merge – combine multiple generated documents into a single file.
- Templates – manage reusable document templates for leases, agreements, and other documents.
- Workflows – automate bulk document generation for large batches of tenants.
- API Key – integrate ActiveMerge with other systems, such as property management software, Zapier, or Make, for end-to-end automation.
Best Practice: If your agency has multiple staff members, create separate accounts or assign permissions to track document generation activities and maintain security.
Step 2: Prepare Tenant Data for Lease Renewal
Your spreadsheet is the foundation of accurate, automated lease renewal contracts. ActiveMerge uses this data to personalize each contract.
- Open Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel.
- Create column headers matching the placeholders in your lease renewal template. Common fields include:
- TenantName
- PropertyAddress
- LeaseStartDate
- LeaseEndDate
- NewLeaseEndDate
- MonthlyRent
- SecurityDeposit
- LandlordName
- RenewalNoticeDate
- Enter each tenant’s updated information in individual rows. Include all relevant details to avoid missing data in the generated contracts.
Example Tenant Data Table:
- Save the spreadsheet as CSV or XLSX.
Best Practices:
- Ensure column headers exactly match template placeholders to prevent errors.
- Double-check dates, rent amounts, and property addresses.
- Include optional fields such as renewal notice dates or early termination clauses if needed.
Step 3: Upload Tenant Data to ActiveMerge
- Navigate to Document Generation → Start New Job.
- Upload File with Data, drag and drop your spreadsheet or select it from your computer.
- If unsure about formatting, download the sample spreadsheet from the ActiveMerge page for reference.
ActiveMerge will process your spreadsheet, preparing it to merge with your lease renewal template.
Tip: Large datasets may take slightly longer to process. The platform provides progress indicators for batch uploads.
Step 4: Upload Your Lease Renewal Template
The template is the foundation of your automated lease renewal contracts. It contains the contract text and placeholders that ActiveMerge will fill with tenant-specific data.
1. Prepare Your Template
- Open Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or any DOCX editor.
- Create your lease renewal contract with all standard clauses your agency uses (new lease term, rent adjustments, tenant and landlord obligations, notice periods, etc.).
- Replace tenant-specific information with placeholders that exactly match your spreadsheet column headers.
Example Template Text with Placeholders:
| This Lease Renewal Agreement is made between {LandlordName} (“Landlord”) and {TenantName} (“Tenant”) for the property located at {PropertyAddress}. The current lease shall end on {LeaseEndDate}, and the new lease term shall begin on {LeaseEndDate} and end on {NewLeaseEndDate}. The monthly rent shall be {MonthlyRent}, payable on the 1st of each month. A security deposit of {SecurityDeposit} is held by the Landlord. This renewal notice was issued on {RenewalNoticeDate}. |
2. Save the Template
- Save the document as a .DOCX file (Word format).
- Make sure it is cleanly formatted and that all placeholders are spelled exactly as in your data file.
3. Upload to ActiveMerge
- In your ActiveMerge dashboard, go to Document Generation → Step 2: Upload Your Template.
- Drag and drop your DOCX template or select it from your computer.
- If you have previously uploaded templates, you can choose from Saved Templates instead.
- Click Detect Placeholders to ensure ActiveMerge recognizes all the fields from your spreadsheet.
- Name your template and click Save.
Tips:
- Avoid spaces or special characters in placeholders. For example, use {TenantName} instead of {Tenant Name}.
- Keep optional sections flexible if some fields may not always be used.
After this step, your template is linked to your tenant data, and you’re ready to choose the export format and generate the documents in the next steps.
Don’t have a lease renewal template ready? Visit the Free Templates section on ActiveMerge to download pre-built contracts you can customize.
Step 5: Select Export Format
- Under Step 3: Select Export Format, choose the desired output:
- PDF: Recommended for finalized contracts that should not be edited.
- DOCX: Useful if you need to make manual adjustments after generation.
- PPTX: Rarely used for contracts, primarily for presentations or property summaries.
For lease renewals, PDF ensures consistency, professionalism, and security.
Step 6: Generate Lease Renewal Contracts
- Click Generate Documents.
- ActiveMerge merges tenant data with your template, producing personalized contracts for each tenant.
- Depending on file size, generation usually takes just a few seconds.
You will see a list of generated contracts with preview options once complete.
Tip: Use bulk generation for large property portfolios to save significant time.
Step 7: Preview and Validate Contracts
Before distributing contracts:
- Open one or more generated lease renewals.
- Verify that all placeholders are correctly filled.
- Check formatting, alignment, and data accuracy.
- If errors exist, adjust the spreadsheet or template and regenerate.
Best Practice: Always validate a sample of contracts first, especially when using a new template.
ActiveMerge provides multiple distribution options:
- Download as ZIP: For printing or offline storage.
- Share via Email: Send contracts directly to tenants using integrated workflows.
- Save to Cloud Storage: Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive.
This ensures your agency can match document delivery to its workflow and tenant preferences.
Step 9: Automate Lease Renewal Workflow (Optional)
For agencies managing large volumes of tenants:
- Integrate ActiveMerge with Zapier or Make.
- Trigger automatic lease renewal generation when new tenant data is added.
- Automatically send contracts to tenants by email.
- Store finalized contracts in dedicated cloud folders.
This turns lease renewal preparation into a hands-free, automated process.
Real-World Example
| Scenario | Process | Outcome |
| Without ActiveMerge | Staff manually update each lease renewal contract for 150 tenants. This involves copying and pasting tenant names, addresses, lease dates, and rent amounts into individual documents. | The process takes several days, is highly repetitive, and prone to errors such as typos or incorrect dates. Staff spend more time on paperwork than on tenant communications or property management. |
| With ActiveMerge | Upload a spreadsheet containing all tenant information and a standardized lease renewal template into ActiveMerge. The platform automatically merges the data with the template. | Generate 150 fully personalized lease renewal contracts in under a minute. Staff can focus on high-value tasks such as tenant communications, inspections, and property management, rather than repetitive document editing. |
Beyond Lease Renewals
ActiveMerge can automate other real estate documents using the same workflow:
- Tenant welcome letters
- Move-in/move-out inspection reports
- Security deposit receipts
- Eviction notices and late payment reminders
- Property management agreements
Best Practices for Agencies
- Maintain a library of templates for standardization.
- Keep templates legally updated.
- Integrate with property management software for automated data syncing.
- Test with small batches before large-scale generation.
- Use consistent file naming conventions for easy tracking.
Conclusion
Manually preparing lease renewal contracts is slow, repetitive, and prone to errors—especially for agencies managing multiple properties. ActiveMerge simplifies the process by allowing agencies to:
- Standardize all lease renewal contracts for consistency
- Automatically merge tenant data into templates
- Generate dozens—or even hundreds—of contracts in just minutes
- Enhance accuracy, ensure compliance, and improve tenant satisfaction
By automating these repetitive tasks, agencies can streamline their workflows, reduce administrative workload, and save countless hours each month. ActiveMerge turns lease renewal management into a fast, scalable, and efficient process that grows with your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What documents can ActiveMerge generate?
Rental agreements, lease renewals, tenant welcome letters, inspection reports, security deposit receipts, eviction notices, and property management agreements.
How does ActiveMerge merge tenant-specific information?
Placeholders in templates (e.g., {TenantName}, {NewLeaseEndDate}) are automatically replaced with tenant data from spreadsheets.
Can I generate multiple lease renewals at once?
Yes, ActiveMerge supports batch generation. Upload a spreadsheet with multiple tenants, and the system produces personalized contracts for each in one click.
In which formats can I export the documents?
PDF, DOCX, and PPTX. PDF is recommended for secure, professional lease renewals.
