Overview
Sometimes you might have a tenant move out of one of your rental units and into another. In other words, their lease ends on the old unit and a new lease begins on the new.
In this situation, you likely don't return their security deposit but hold onto it for their lease on the new unit. How do you record this in DoorLoop?
Don't worry, we'll explain how to handle this!
The Steps
Even though in the real world you might not be moving any money, in DoorLoop we need to show that the security deposit moves from the old lease to the new lease.
Make sure you have already created the tenant's new lease for the new unit and that you added the appropriate security deposit charge on Step 3 of that process.
Also, make sure you first withhold part of the deposit for move-out charges if necessary. You can also record withheld deposit funds as part of the End Lease process.
From the main menu, click on Leases and then click on Active Leases.
Find the lease you want to transfer the security deposit for and click on it. You can either sort the list by the various columns and filters or use the Search leases search bar.
If you are done with this lease other than transferring the security deposit, you can just complete the End Lease process to record that you "refunded" the deposit. If you don't want to end this lease yet, continue on with these steps.
Click on the Deposits tab and then the Refund Deposit button.
On the Lease Refund window, enter the following information:
Due Date: Enter the date the old lease ended and the new lease started. You could enter a different date if you'd like.
Paid To Tenant: Select the name of the tenant who paid the deposit.
Pay From Account: Select the bank account currently holding the security deposit money.
Payment method: This is for informational purposes, so you can just pick Other.
Description: Add an optional description to remind yourself what this refund is actually for, saying something like, "Internal transfer: moved from Apartment 4 to Apartment 3."
Amount to Refund: Enter the amount of the security deposit. Or what is left of the deposit if you withheld some for move-out charges.
Use the Add Note section to add an optional note for your reference when reviewing this "refund" later.
Add any relevant files and click Save.
Go back to your list of Active Leases and find the lease you want to transfer the security deposit for and click on it. You can either sort the list by the various columns and filters or use the Search leases search bar.
Because when you created this new lease you posted a charge for the security deposit, all you need to do now is to record that you received a "payment" for this on the new lease.
Record the payment for the same amount as the deposit, or what was left of it after move-out charges.
Toggle on the option to Automatically Deposit this payment because it is actually already in your bank account.
You can also record in the notes section something like, "Internal transfer: moved from Apartment 4 to Apartment 3."
Click Save and you are done!
End Result
After all this, the bank account balance will be the same as when it began.
If you increased the deposit charge for the new lease, or the tenant had move-out charges and needs to pay more to reach the full deposit amount on their new lease, there is nothing more you need to do.
You already posted the full security deposit charge for the new lease when you created it, and then you posted the payment on the new lease for the transfer of what was left of the security deposit on the old lease.
The difference gets added to the outstanding balance of the lease. When your tenant pays for this outstanding balance, the rest of the security deposit charge is paid off and the deposit is recorded as being paid in full on the new lease. Easy!
Note that when you perform reconciliation for this bank account, even though the DoorLoop transactions recording the security deposit transfer won't match any transactions from your actual bank account, you can still select and reconcile them because the amounts balance out. The refund on the old lease equals the payment on the new lease, so the impact on your bank balance is $0.
Next Steps
End the old lease when all move out procedures are complete.