When a bond is held by a Bond Authority or Interest Bearing Account rather than in your Client/Trust Account, the refund process follows the same steps as a standard bond refund, with one key difference — you can indicate that the authority has sent the funds directly to the tenant.
Setting Up a Tenancy Ledger
Before processing the refund, ensure a Tenancy Ledger exists for the tenant. If not:
Navigate to Client/Trust Accounts.
Select Tenancy Ledger Balance.
Use the dropdown next to New Owners Ledger and select New Tenancy Ledger.
Search for the tenancy name and click Save.
Processing the Bond Refund
Select the relevant tenancy and navigate to the Bonds tab.
Click the Contextual Menu [...] and choose Prepare to Refund.
Review all outstanding invoices for the tenancy.
Confirm the Amount to Refund to Tenant. If the Bond Authority has sent the funds directly to the tenant without returning them to the Client/Trust Account, tick Bond Authority has sent funds directly to Tenant.
If applicable, enter the Amount to Transfer to Owner. Do not enter an amount if there are outstanding invoices.
Enter the Amount to Transfer to Tenancy Ledger to settle outstanding invoices or hold for a later refund.
Approve the generated income invoice to record receipt of funds.
Save and approve the invoice to proceed.
Finalising the Refund
Update the Tenancy Invoice Contact with the tenant's payment details.
Process a disbursement using a profile that includes bonds. Tenant refunds appear where bonds to be lodged are listed, highlighted in orange.
Funds for the owner transfer from the bonds ledger to the property ledger and appear in the Transfers section of the owner statement.
Amounts for the tenancy ledger shift from the bonds ledger, where they can be applied to invoices or refunded to the tenant.
For Asia-Pacific customers, the term "Trust Account" is used. European customers refer to this as "Client Account". In North America, bonds and deposits are referred to as Security Deposits. Client/Trust Accounting is not available to customers in North America. For more information on regional terminology, see our Glossary of Regional Terminology.