How Deferred Deposits Post to Your Books

A deferred deposit doesn't sit outside your accounting, it just posts on a different schedule than an upfront payment. This guide explains what happens, and when, in plain terms.

Who this applies to: anyone with accounting visibility on a property using deferred deposit collection.

While the deposit is only scheduled

A deferred deposit that hasn't been collected yet is not treated as money you've received. It doesn't post an invoice, doesn't affect your held-deposit totals, and doesn't appear as "Paid" anywhere in the booking. It's simply a record that a deposit is expected, showing "Deposit due" until it's actually collected. This is deliberate: showing it as collected before the money arrives would overstate what you've actually taken in.

The moment it's collected

Whether the resident pays it themselves, staff send a payment link that gets paid, or staff record a manual payment, the same thing happens automatically the instant it's collected:

• The booking's price record is stamped as paid, with the method used.
• An invoice posts using the booking's usual invoice numbering.
• A balanced journal entry posts: every entry has matching debits and credits, exactly like any other amenity payment.

There's no separate step for a deferred deposit versus an upfront one once it's actually collected; both post through the same accounting path.

If you collect a deposit together with another charge

Staff can select the deposit and another outstanding charge (like an add-on) and collect them together in one action. If that's done by card, the resident receives one combined payment request for the whole amount, and any card processing fee your property incurs is recorded once for that combined payment, not duplicated per line item.

When it's waived instead

Waiving a charge is money-neutral. No invoice posts, no journal entry posts, and no cash moves, because none was ever collected. The decision to waive is still permanently recorded in the Audit Log, so there's a full trail even though the books show no transaction for it.

Where to look

• The Payment & Refunds tab on the booking shows the deposit's current state and, once collected, who collected it and how.
• The Audit Log tab shows every action taken on the booking's charges, collected or waived, with the staff member's name and timestamp.
• The posted invoice is reachable the same way as any other amenity invoice, under Accounting › Invoices, for staff who also hold accounting access.