Overview

Deposits are a core feature of OwnerRez, and we anticipate that every user will use it in one way or another. A "deposit" is exactly what it sounds like - a collection of payments that are grouped and deposited into your bank account. For most homeowners and PMs, this is a nightly process where they see their credit card or Airbnb payouts in a lump sum each day. If you have a large operation or use multiple payment methods, you might see a variety of deposits each day, but the concept is the same. Depending on your relationship with the payer, the deposit is often less than the total amount of payments because it has fees deducted. Or, you might be set up with "gross deposit," meaning that the fees are charged at the end of the month, and each nightly payout is for the full payment.

Why All the Fuss

You might be wondering what the big deal with tracking deposits is. After all, your payments and refunds are already there in OwnerRez, with the correct date, so isn't that good enough to see in revenue reports? Short answer: no! There are many, many advantages to tracking deposits. Here are just a few to think about, some of which are theoretical and may apply to future updates:

• Bank reconciliation - Your payments and refunds may have amounts and dates that don't match what comes into your bank account. Deposits should be "to the penny" and match.
• Airbnb transactions and payouts - Learn more by reading the Airbnb Transaction Sync support article.
• Automatic importing of deposits - Now that OwnerRez supports deposits, it can also find and automatically import them from your processor. Many processors (Stripe, Authorize.net, Lynnbrook Group, Braintree) offer deposit or "settlement" data via API, so we can pull that in without you having to record anything manually. We've already hooked that up for Stripe and Lynnbrook Group. We are planning to support Authorize.net and other gateways soon.

• Fee handling and expensing - What is deposited to your bank account may have fees deducted (from banks, from Airbnb) that need to be recorded. You should know your fees so you can expense them to owners or create reports.
• Owner statements and payouts - Even if you've been "paid," you may not yet have the money in your account, and you may not have it for several months if your processor doesn't fund you until the booking arrives. If that's the case, do you want to accidentally remit that money to the owner? Your owner statements should only remit money to owners that have actually been deposited in your bank account. Deposits empower you to do that.
• Adjustments - Not every deposit perfectly follows payments, refunds, and fee amounts. Your processor might make an adjustment deposit for special fees or reserves you need to track. The OwnerRez deposit concept handles that.
• QuickBooks syncing—Do you want your QuickBooks "bank transactions" records to auto-match your invoice revenue? As of August 2024, we sync deposits to QuickBooks automatically so that by the time you get to the "bank transactions" screen in QuickBooks, you can effortlessly "match" each one.