When a Tenant moves out, you will need to end their lease. There are two parts to this:
First the lease needs to end, ie. the Tenant is no longer living there, has no more rights of abode, and is not charged any more rent. This happens automatically if the lease expires by virtue of time passing the Lease End Date, or else you can change the Lease End Date to the date they actually move(d) out. When that happens the system assumes the unit is vacant and will allow you to generate a new lease from that time on. Also no new Rent Due charges will be applied to their account.
The second thing that needs to happen is that all the final accounting and reconciling needs to be done: The Tenant will be expecting a refund of their security deposit, or else an explanation as to why they are not getting it. If they have been on a shared utilities payment plan that, too, will need to be reconciled and the appropriate adjustment made.
These latter tasks are normally done in the week or so following their departure. During this time you can make adjustments to their accounts as needed. Once they are all completed, you can then formally close the lease and, if you wish, you can also archive the Tenant so that they are not cluttering up your workspace.
To close a lease, click on the Tenant’s name on the Dashboard, or else find the Tenant in the list of Leased Tenants. Click on the link to View the Lease (on the left if viewing the Tenant or the Lease End Date if listing all the tenants). Then click on the Close Lease button.
You will then have the opportunity to enter how much Security Depost you are returning to them. You will also enter the actual end date of the lease, the date you returned the Security Deposit and any private notes you want to make for your own future reference. If you had not already changed the Lease End Date, it will now be changed to the date you provide.
Once the Lease has been closed you can still access it, however you will be warned to be very careful about making any changes to it as that might upset your accounting and your accountant won’t be too happy with that.
If after it is closed the Tenant still owes you money (i.e. has a negative balance on their account), this will show up on the Dashboard as an aging debt until either you collect on it, or you decided to abondon it as a bad debt.
A note about the Security Deposit: Since you are required to keep Tenants’ deposits separate from Company money, we do so on the bookkeeping. When a Tenant pays a deposit, it will be marked as received into your main account, and then transfered across to the Trust account. When you close an account, all of that money is then transfered back to the main account, from which you then either return it to the Tenant, or set it against charges (that you can manually enter) for damages or unpad rent etc. You can view the Security Deposits that are (supposed to be) in your trust account by navigating to Income -> List/Assign Security/Pet Deposits.
