Rent collection ledger question

Setup & Support
1

I just set up Rent collection and I noticed after the payment cleared in my account Stessa added tenants December rent payment ( paid by Money Order before Rent Collection was set up) to their ledger even though I set the Rent Collection Lease to start in on Jan 1st 2026. Can I just delete them from the ledger with out it affecting stresses accounting books?

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2

@weomhomes I don’t use rent collection through Stessa, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

What does the 12/31/25 rent payment represent? Is it the tenant paying January rent? Is it a phantom payment? Something else?

How are you running your business? Cash accounting or accrual accounting? If it’s cash - which is most smaller sized landlords - you record the payments when they are received, and you owe the tax liability during that time period.

The other thing I see is that your balance sheet may be off:

  1. You did not record December’s rent charge.
  2. A security deposit has not yet been recorded.

Hope that helps:

-Tom

www.realcentsorganized .com

3

Hello @tlatuga

The 12/31/25 rent payment represent Is tenant paying January rent.
This is my first year but I’m assuming we will be doing Cash accounting as you stated. Decembers rent was payed through money order before setting up online rent collection ( not sure why it was there but its gone now)

4

@weomhomes This is not financial advice, just how I would approach the scenario.

Cash method means you record the rent for 2025 because that is when it was received. Note that for tax purposes, the IRS generally requires advance rent to be reported in the year received, even if you are using an accrual method for your books.

  • Advance rent – Generally, you include any advance rent paid in income in the year you receive it regardless of the period covered or the method of accounting you use.

Changing the date to Jan 1st in the Stessa ledger is great for keeping your 2026 ‘expected vs. actuals’ clean, but just make sure your 2025 tax filing reflects the actual receipt date.

Hope that helps.

-Tom

1 Like
5

Thank you for your help and time! @tlatuga