It can be challenging to remember to transfer funds between a property’s cash accounts when interacting with resident ledgers. One minor data entry mistake can put you at risk of unintentionally sending funds to incorrect parties. To help reduce constant trips to and time spent on Financial Diagnostics and Transfer Funds Between Cash Accounts, Appfolio has added the ability to handle cash balances for you.

Whenever a resident receipt is entered, reversed, or reapplied, or a prepayment applies to a charge, AppFolio will create transactions to move funds around if the charges paid by the receipt are offset to different cash accounts. The types of transactions created or reversed will depend on if the cash accounts are tied to the same bank account.

To demonstrate how this works, we’ll walk through a typical scenario: receiving a single check or money order for charges offset to different cash accounts, like rent and a management held security deposit or association dues and a special assessment.

This tenant has two unpaid charges – one for Rent and one for Security Deposits:

The “Rent” general ledger account is offset to operating cash and “Security Deposits” is offset to escrow. We received a single check for $2550 to pay off both charges, so we’ll log a single receipt:

We’re choosing to deposit the original payment into the operating cash bank account. AppFolio will automatically create transactions for you based on your bank setup, and perform additional actions depending on steps you take next.

Operating and Escrow Bank Accounts are the Same

You’ll see a confirmation message mentioning the receipt was logged and funds were transferred:

The logged receipt will display “Automatic Cash Transfers” and link out to any transactions created to move funds between cash accounts:

For this scenario, a $900 journal entry is logged to move funds from operating to escrow to track and preserve your $900 liability balance in escrow:

This journal entry is automatically reconciled so you don’t have to worry about seeing additional transactions that don’t impact your bank balance when reconciling. It will be dated the same date as your original receipt.

Reapplying the receipt to only rent charges will reverse the linked journal entry so the receipted funds are removed from escrow as the Security Deposit charge sits unpaid:

The new receipt will not have an associated transfer since no funds need to move:

The original reversed receipt will reference the reversed journal entry with the visual cue of the amount crossed out:

If you reversed the original receipt instead of reapplying, you’ll see the same as the above screenshot – the Journal Entry will be reversed for you too and the amount will be crossed out.

If you reapply the payment to charges offset to an additional cash account, or the same banks for different amounts, Appfolio will reverse and create transactions to move funds until the balances of your paid charges are the same as their corresponding offset cash account. All transactions created have the goal of making sure your funds are where you expect them to be.

If for any reason you’ve already transferred the funds for this receipt (like if you’re getting used to using the feature for the first time), you can always reverse or edit the Journal Entry Appfolio automatically created for you. The remarks for the created journal entry will always start with “Auto transfer of funds…”

Note

If the bank accounts are the same and you leverage closed accounting periods or prevent posting outside the current month for some users.

Appfolio recommends you do not change the dates on the generated Journal Entries since they’re intended to match the date on the original receipt. If you do happen to change the dates, and the linked Journal Entries are in a closed or uneditable period and the receipt is not, users without permission to make changes will not be able to reapply these sorts of receipts.

Operating and Escrow Bank Accounts are Different

You’ll see a confirmation message mentioning the receipt was logged and funds were transferred:

The logged receipt will display “Automatic Cash Transfers” and link out to any transactions created to remind you to move funds between bank accounts:

For this scenario, a $900 incomplete bank transfer is logged:

Once you’re ready to move the funds between your bank accounts, click “Mark as Completed” so the transaction is logged to the General Ledger for you and available to reconcile when you’re ready.

You can view all Bank Transfers you need to complete from the Accounting > Bank Transfers page:

If you happen to batch these transactions together to avoid fees or for efficiency, you can go to Accounting > Bank Transfers > Incomplete Transfers and click “Transfer as Group” to batch together any funds that are moving between the same bank accounts:

Reapplying the receipt to only rent charges will cancel the bank transfer if it’s incomplete and you haven’t moved the funds yet – that way you don’t accidentally move the funds later. If you’ve already moved the funds, Appfolio will create a new bank transfer to remind you to move the funds back into the original bank account, like this:

The original reversed receipt will either reference the bank transfer where you originally moved the funds, or the canceled bank transfer if you never moved the funds. If a bank transfer was canceled, you’ll see the linked Automatic Cash Transfers transaction crossed out. This shows a receipt where the bank transfer was completed and funds were moved (the bank transfer was completed):

If you reversed the original receipt instead of reapplying, you’ll see the same transactions created as above, depending on where AppFolio believes the funds are located.

If you reapply the payment to charges offset to an additional cash account, or the same banks for different amounts, Appfolio will create transactions telling you to move the net so your funds ultimately end up in the paid charge’s offset cash account. All transactions created have the goal of making sure your funds are where you expect them to be.

If for any reason you’ve already transferred the funds for this receipt (like if you’re getting used to using the feature for the first time), you can always cancel the bank transfers Appfolio automatically created for you. The remarks for the created bank transfer will always start with “Auto transfer of funds…”