Tracking the Security Deposit Ledger

When Creating a New LeasePreview unavailable, the financial section includes a specific field for the Security Deposit. Instead of a simple checkbox, Landager tracks deposits per lease as a ledger: collected, deduction, refund, and carried over.

While seemingly minor, this ledger is a critical operational tool for managing the chaotic move-in workflow.

The Move-In Reality

In traditional property management, the lease signing and the physical exchange of funds don't always happen simultaneously.

You might email a lease to a tenant on Tuesday, they sign it on Wednesday, but you aren't meeting them to do the walkthrough and collect the cashier's check until Friday morning.

During that 72-hour gap, the lease is legally "Scheduled" or "Active" in the system, but you haven't secured the funds required to hand over the keys.

How the Ledger Protects You

By designing your workflow around this ledger, you eliminate the risk of accidentally granting access without payment:

1. At Lease Creation: When building the contract in Landager on Tuesday, you enter the $1,000 Security Deposit requirement.
2. Pending Funds: Because no funds have been recorded yet, the deposit balance is zero. You can clearly see that the deposit is still pending.
3. The Physical Exchange: On Friday morning, the tenant hands you the cashier's check.
4. Updating the Record: You immediately open Landager on your phone, edit the lease inline in the Leases table, and record the deposit as "collected" in the ledger.

Why It Isn't Tracked as a "Rent Payment"

You might wonder why Landager doesn't just have you log the security deposit as a standard Rent Payment.

This is intentional financial separation. Security deposits are typically held in separate escrow accounts and are technically the tenant's money held in trust, whereas Rent Payments are recognized revenue for your business.

By tracking the deposit purely as a ledger on the lease record itself, Landager prevents your monthly revenue reports from being artificially inflated by $1,000 the week a new tenant moves in.