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Record a Security Deposit Payment on a Lease

Record a tenant's security deposit payment on an active lease — for deposits paid outside DoorLoop (cash, check, money order, or external transfer).

Written by Samuel

Overview

Once a security deposit charge has been posted to the lease, the next step is to record the actual payment. Use this workflow when the tenant paid the deposit outside of DoorLoop — for example, by cash, check, or money order — and you need to manually log it.

Note: If the tenant pays the security deposit online through the tenant portal, the payment is recorded automatically and allocates to the security deposit charge, if it's the only open charge on their ledger. You only need this article for payments received outside of DoorLoop.

Note: A security deposit will not appear on the Deposits tab, tenant statements, owner statements, or deposit reports until this step is complete. Posting the charge alone is not enough — recording the payment (or a credit) is what makes the deposit visible across DoorLoop.

The Steps

  1. Click Leasing > Active Leases on the main menu.

  2. Find the lease you want to record the payment on and click into it.

  3. Click the Transactions tab and click the Receive Payment button.

  4. Enter the following information:

    • Lease: the lease the payment is being received into (auto-filled).

    • Date: the date the payment was received. Change if needed.

    • Received From: auto-filled with the tenant on the lease.

    • Deposit Account: the bank account the funds will go into. This auto-fills with the default operating account for the property. If you've set a default escrow account for the property, you can select it here instead.

    • Amount Received: the dollar amount of the payment.

    • Payment Method: choose how the tenant paid — for informational purposes. Selecting Check lets you record an optional Check Number.

    • Add Memo: optional reference note that will appear in reports.

  5. Set the toggles for this payment:

    • Automatically Apply Payments:

      • On applies the payment to the oldest open charge first.

      • Off lets you choose which charge to apply the payment to.

      We recommend toggling this off for security deposits so you can manually apply the payment to the deposit charge — this prevents the payment from being applied to rent or another open balance by accident.

    • Automatically Deposit Funds: when on, DoorLoop creates a bank deposit at the same time as the payment, so the funds immediately reflect in your bank account balance instead of sitting in Undeposited Funds. Use this if you've already physically deposited the money.

    • Email Payment Receipt to the Tenant: when on, sends the tenant an automatic receipt email.

  6. Add any relevant files (optional) and click Save.

You're done! The payment now shows on the Transactions tab of the lease, and the security deposit will appear on the Deposits tab, on lease and owner statements, and in deposit reports.

Tip: The default settings for Automatically Apply Payments, Automatically Deposit Funds, and Email Payment Receipt to the Tenant can be saved as your defaults — toggle them how you want and click Set as Default. DoorLoop will remember your preferences for next time.

Tip: If a tenant pays the security deposit online and the payment is applied to a different charge by mistake, you can reallocate the payment to the deposit charge.

Note: If you toggle Automatically Deposit Funds off, remember to record the bank deposit in DoorLoop once the funds clear your bank account. The deposit won't reflect in your bank balance until you do.

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