So, you made a payment to one lease on your account when you meant to pay to another lease on the account. Accidents happen, right? Can we fix it? Yes, we can! (In most cases). Read on McDuff.
Payments mistakenly made to one lease when you mean to make one to another happen most often when a resident is
- living in one location and moving to another one OR
- when a resident is living with one group at a location and staying at that location but with some different people.
In both these cases, residents will typically have two leases attached to their portal accounts. One will be the current, “Active,” lease and the other will be the new “Draft” one. The most common error is when the renewing tenant means to make a payment to the new Draft lease–the one for the next year–and accidentally chooses the Active one (the current year). Oopsey.
Can we move it? Yes, in most cases but…
There cannot have been a balance due.
Because everyone is jointly and severally liable on the leases, if there was a balance due, then the new payment will have been applied to the balance due first-in/first-out, and therefore the payment would not be able to be transferred. In this case, the current tenants simply need to pay off whatever the balance was so that there is sufficient pre-payment on the account to transfer the funds to the new account. Once you work out among yourselves who needs to pay for the balance, we can transfer the payment over to the other account. Just send us a note when your pre-payment amount on the old account is at least as big as the payments you want transferred to the new one.
Keep in mind: The charge and payment entries on the leases will be tied to the Primary lessee
When we transfer a payment, we have to use a mechanism called a Journal Entry. It will remove the money from one account and place it in the other one. One limitation of this mechanism is that all journal entries are listed in the name of the Primary Lessee on the account. So, when you are keeping track of who has paid how much, you will want to make sure you account for this transfer correctly. We will have a note on the entry that clearly says whose payment it was; however, one column will have the Primary’s name, even if the payment was not that person’s. Not a huge deal, but worth remembering as you keep things sorted out amongst yourselves.
Mistakes happen. We are happy to help! So, if you made a payment to the wrong account, just let us know and we will help you sort it out.