Refunding Security Deposits

When a customer leaves, they are usually sent a final bill followed by the return of their security deposit. In some cases, a portion of the security deposit may be kept to apply against the final charges.

WBAR makes it easy to capture any portion of the security deposit and apply it toward  the final charges, or you can refund any or all of the customer's deposit. You may also select whether you want WBAR to create a printable refund check using check forms and your laser or ink jet printer.

To process security deposit refunds, click on Adjustments, Refund Deposits. The security deposit refund form will only show accounts that have a security deposit recorded. The deposit amount along with the balances due will be displayed. You may apply the deposit against the balances due provided that you do not create a credit amount in any of the balance due fields. If you want to refund the entire deposit, do not distribute anything into the fields and WBAR will allow the entire deposit to be removed from the account. Enter a comment to explain why you are refunding and/or capturing part of the deposit.

If you want WBAR to create a refund check for you, click on the Create a Refund Check box. Click on the OK button and WBAR will process the refund according to the distribution you have chosen.

In this example, the customer's deposit was forfeited to apply to the balance that was due. Since the deposit is not enough to cover the charges, a balance of 19.02 remains. The account can be made inactive and will remain an open balance until the final payment is received and posted.

When any portion of a security deposit is forfeited, WBAR places an entry in the the Adjustment file journal to show how the deposit was applied. You may view the report by clicking on Adjustments, View/Print Report, Deposit Refunds. To print out the report, your printer must be set to landscape mode. The report shows the initial deposit amount, the fields it distributed to, and the remaining deposit and remaining balance of the account. If a deposit is refunded in full, no entry exists in the Adjustment journal because no portion of the deposit was forfeited.

When any portion of a deposit is forfeited, an entry  will also be made in the customer's account history. A security deposit forfeit is treated as an ordinary payment for income tracking purposes.