Overview
A lease ledger, also known as a rent ledger or tenant ledger, is a document that records the rental income for a specific unit. It’s a detailed record of all rent payments and other transactions between a tenant and the property manager. It can be used to track the monthly rent payment history and can serve as a supporting document in disputes or eviction processes.
While not mandatory, having a lease ledger can be very beneficial for property owners, especially those managing multiple rental units. It helps track income and expenses, solve disputes, and maintain organized financial records.
Explaining DoorLoop's Lease Ledger on a Lease
To explain how to read the Lease Ledger, we'll be using the ledger below as an example. This is a lease with a single tenant with monthly rent charges and payments received.
Lease Ledger Columns
The lease ledger can be best explained by explaining what each column on the lease ledger shows.
Type - The Type column shows what kind of transaction each line item is. This can be a charge, payment, credit, or refund. These are the four types of transactions that will appear here.
Status - The Status column is mainly reserved for payments and will show whether or not payment has been deposited into your DoorLoop bank account or not. It will show Undeposited or Deposited. There are other statuses that can show, but these are for online payments.
Date - The Date shown can mean different things depending on what type of transaction it is. For a charge, the date is when the payment is due. For a payment, the date is when the payment was made. For a refund or credit, the date is when they were issued.
Category - The Category column shows the type of account category the specific transaction is for, such as rent, security deposit, maintenance, etc. If it's a payment, it'll match whatever charge it was allocated to. If you see --Split Values--, it means that the payment was allocated to multiple charges.
Total - The Total column is an important one which shows exactly how much the charge, payment, credit, or refund was made for. Charges and refunds will show as a positive number while payments and credits will show as negative numbers. This is because a charge and refund will add to the running balance, while a payment and credit will subtract from the running balance.
Running Balance - The Running Balance column will show how much a tenant owes or how much you owe a tenant. The running balance is adjusted with each transaction that is posted to the lease ledger. A positive balance in Red means the tenant has a balance due on the lease. A negative Green balance means the tenant has credit on the lease which will reduce the balance when the next rent charge posts.
Reading the Running Balance
Using the same example, you'll see that the initial charge of $3800 was made on 4/1. This places the running balance in the red, where the tenant owes $3800. The tenant then makes a payment of $1000 on 4/1, which reduces the balance to $2800. Then, they make another payment of $2800 on 4/3, which reduces the balance to $0.
After this, you can see how the running balance increases and decreases each time a charge is posted and a payment is received. Currently, this particular tenant owes $2700, which appears in red at the top.
The current running balance is always the one at the top.
Running balance amount in red = tenant owes this amount
Running balance amount in green = tenant has a credit
Exporting the Lease Ledger
If you need to send a copy of the lease ledger to your tenant, you can do so by exporting it as a PDF file. This can be done while on the Transactions tab of a lease and clicking the Save as PDF button. This saves as an Account Statement and will show the same information that is shown on the Transactions tab but in a more simplified form.
View the Lease Ledger of a Past Tenant
You can view the lease ledger of a past tenant by going to People > Tenants on the main menu. Set the Filter to Status: Past and then find and click on the past tenant you want to see the lease ledger for.
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