I had a tenant who moved out early and completely forfeited their security deposit. My issue is that on my balance sheet, it still says I have a short term liability due to the security deposit. How do I properly record this as both income and for it to NOT show up on the balance sheet as income anymore?
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You can handle this a few ways. You can move the funds at your financial institution if you have a specific bank account set up for security deposits (for example move the security deposit from a savings account to a checking account). When these transactions appear in Stessa, you would debit (-) Security Deposit and credit (+) another category of your choosing (most likely a “Transfer” category although there isn’t a perfect fit). This will remove the short term liability from the Balance Sheet Report, Rent Roll Report, etc.
If you aren’t moving the funds at your financial institution, then you can manually create transactions that accomplish the same functionality.
I hope this helps.
I think Stessa needs a “Security Deposit Forfeited” income category. You’re supposed to record it as income and then offset that income with the related expenses. However, there is no “Security Deposit Forfeited” category.
Meanwhile, I’ve never been able to get the “Security Deposit” field on the tenant page to work correctly. When I put an amount in that field, Stessa adds a charge for the full amount at the beginning of the lease, and a credit for the full amount at the end of the lease. I see no way to alter the credit at the end of the lease to refund less than the full amount.
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