Manage your Deposits Ledger in Accounting

Content

• Deposits Ledger Overview
• Access the Deposits page
• The Deposits Ledger and Direct Reservations
• Manage the Deposits within the reservation folio
• Check out a reservation that has a remaining deposit

Deposits Ledger Overview

The Deposits Ledger page provides a structured way to handle pre-check-in payments by automatically directing them to a dedicated liability account. This ensures that advance deposits are separated from revenue until services are provided.

• Ensures compliance with accounting best practices by categorizing advance payments as liabilities.
• Provides better visibility into total advance deposits, preventing misclassification as revenue.
• Allows manual transfer of deposits from the Deposits Ledger to the guest folio upon check-in.
• Supports flexible deposit application methods:
  • Transfer all deposits immediately at check-in.
  • Consume at check-in* automatically when reservation becomes in-house. 
• On the Deposits page, you will find all the payments across all reservation folios considered deposits. This gives you a snapshot of your hotels’ total outstanding advanced deposit liability.
• Each transaction includes a link to the reservation it is associated with along with reservation details, such as status and check-in and check-out dates.
• *Automated Deposit Consumption:
  • You can enable the automatic consumption feature in the Payments deposits settings that automatically consumes all collected deposits as soon as a reservation status changes to In-house or Checked-out. This removes the need for staff to manually transfer deposits and reduces the risk of error.
  • If the reservation status is changed back to Confirmed or Confirmation Pending, deposits will remain in the folio and are not returned to the Deposits Ledger.

Access the Deposits page

1. Access the Accounting page in the main menu , 
2. Go to the first tab: Deposits

3. You can toggle on/off the option to show consumed/void deposits:

   • You can toggle this on to see the history of a deposit moved out of the ledger and into a reservation's guest ledger (folio).
   • If however, you only wish to show the deposits that are currently active in the Deposits Ledger, you can toggle this off and get a simple ‘current view’.
4. You can filter the deposits ledger by the following options:
   1. Transactions date
   2. Transaction state
   3. Reservation Status
   4. User
   5. Check-in Date
   6. Check-out Date

The Deposits Ledger and Direct Reservations

When a reservation is booked and paid, either in full or partially, through the booking engine, those payments are automatically classified as Deposits and appear on the Deposits Ledger. Similarly, when creating a direct reservation within the system, it will also be recorded in the Deposits Ledger if you make a payment upon creation.

Additionally, the system allows you to mark any payment as a Deposit after the reservation has been created, allowing to manage security deposits collected upon the guest’s arrival.

Check below how to ensure the payment is classified as a deposit while creating a direct reservation from scratch:

1. Create the reservation with a direct source
2. Click to add payment
3. Assign the payment to the corresponding folio 
4. Fill out the payment details
5. Check the box "Mark as deposit"

After adding this payment, you will not see it directly posted to the reservation folio when you open it again. However, you will see a balance in the Deposits button on the upper right of the reservation:

Manage the Deposits within the reservation folio

Every reservation has a Deposit button on the upper right that indicates the deposit balance of that reservation. 

• When the reservation is checked in, or throughout the stay, you can take those payments to the Guest Ledger to show as revenue.

  • Optionally, all deposits can be moved to the Guest Ledger upon checkout.
  • However, a reservation cannot be brought to terminal status (checked out, no show, or canceled) while leaving an open balance on the Deposits Ledger. This ensures that all deposits are accounted for. Check the section Check out a reservation that has a remaining deposit.
  • Refundable Deposits can be returned, and nonrefundable deposits can be posted as earned revenue.
  • If your property has enabled the consume at check-in automation, this process will happen automatically when a reservation is moved to In-house. Manual consumption is still possible if automation is not enabled.

You can follow the next steps to manage the deposits within the reservation:

1. Click on the Deposits button to display the deposit details for that specific reservation
2. You can filter the deposits transactions to hide already consumed/voided deposits or to see only voided ones
3. You can click to consume on any of the deposit items:
   • When you consume a deposit, it will be transferred out of the Deposits Ledger and posted into the Guest Ledger (Folio).
4. Review the warning message and select if you want to proceed 

When you navigate back to the reservation folio, you will see the deposit was added to the transactions and the deposit remaining balance is zero, meaning that, there is no further amount to be charged as a deposit for that reservation:

Check out a reservation that has a remaining deposit

Whenever you try to check out, cancel, or no-show a reservation (i.e., bring it to a terminal state), if you have a deposit remaining, you will be prompted to consume it.

You will not be able to set the reservation status to a terminal status until the deposits for that reservation have been zeroed out. Follow the next steps:

1. Move the reservation to in-house status
2. Click to confirm the check-in
3. You will be prompted with the remaining deposits and can optionally consume them. Follow the steps in Manage the Deposits within the reservation folio to zero out the deposit balance.
4. Move the reservation back to checked-out status (or no-show, canceled).

If you need to void or refund a deposit instead of consuming and posting it to the Guest Ledger before check-out, you can do this on the main Deposits Ledger page.

1. Go to the Deposits Ledger main page
2. Find the transaction you need to void or refund
3. Click on button of the transaction line
4. Click to void or refund the payment