Overview
You can withhold a lease deposit as part of the Ending a Lease wizard, however, if you didn't do it as part of the end lease wizard, you can do this after you already ended a lease. Perhaps you go through a move-out checklist after one of your colleagues already ended the tenant's lease. No worries, you can still withhold a deposit even though the lease is now inactive.
The Steps
Step 1 - Post a Charge on the Lease (If there isn't one)
The first step if you are looking to withhold a deposit (keeping the deposit instead of refunding it back to the tenant) is to make sure that there is an open charge on the lease to which the deposit can be applied. This needs to be a revenue charge, such as unpaid rent, maintenance, early termination fee, etc. If there is no open charge, you'll must post a charge to the lease.
For a refresher on posting a charge, read: Post a One-Time Charge on a Lease.
Step 2 - Withhold the Lease Deposit
To withhold a deposit from an inactive lease that has already ended, click Leasing on the main menu and then click Inactive Leases.
Find the lease you want to withhold a deposit for and click on it.
The next step is to click the Transactions tab. Before you can withhold a deposit, you'll need to create a lease charge so the deposit can be applied to it. If there are already charges on the lease with a past-due balance, you can skip this step. Otherwise, click the Post Charge button and create a charge for a revenue category, such as Cleaning, Maintenance, or even Lease Termination. You just need to show a reason why you are withholding the deposit.
Next, click on the Deposits tab and then the Withhold Deposit button.
Enter the following information:
Description: enter an optional explanation for the withholding.
Amount to Withhold: enter the amount of the deposit to withhold. If there is more than one lease deposit, you can withhold from multiple deposits, or put $0.00 in the deposits you don't want to withhold.
Due Date: change the date for the withholding if needed.
Add memo: add an optional memo for your reference when reviewing the withholding later.
Add any relevant files and click Save.
Good work! You withheld a lease deposit to pay off outstanding charges, converting the deposit money from a liability on your balance sheet to income shown on your profit and loss report.
Things to Consider
If you were holding the deposit in a separate bank account, such as an Escrow account, you'll need to record what happens to the deposit in real life. So if you withheld the deposit and applied it to a revenue account, such as rent, then you'll need to do a bank transfer from the escrow to your operating account. You need to mimic exactly what happens in real life with what happens in DoorLoop.