Collecting a security deposit

How Aptoria collects a deposit, tracks it as money you hold rather than income, and keeps any deduction a decision you make.

A security deposit is collected as part of the lease terms, so the amount is set when you create the lease and is capped to what your state allows. If you enter a figure above your state's cap, Aptoria holds the line at the legal limit rather than collecting more than the law permits — the cap is enforced on the money path, not just shown as a suggestion.

The tenant pays the deposit through the same in-app payment flow used for rent, so there is no separate check to chase or record by hand.

A deposit is money you hold, not money you have earned, and Aptoria records it that way. In the general ledger the deposit sits as a liability — a balance you owe back to the tenant — kept separate from rent income. That separation keeps your books honest and your tax figures correct: a deposit is not rental income, and treating it as such would overstate what you made.

Because it is tracked distinctly, you can always see the deposit you are holding for each tenant, and it flows correctly into your owner statements and tax reports rather than being mixed in with rent.

At move-out, deciding what to keep from a deposit is on the blocked floor — it never happens autonomously. The agent can help you build a move-out reconciliation: it can line up the itemized charges, gather the documentation, and draft the statement. But approving any deduction, and releasing the remainder, is a decision a human makes.

Your state sets the deadline to return a deposit and the rules for itemizing deductions, and those vary, so Aptoria surfaces the reconciliation for your approval rather than acting on a fixed timeline. Once you approve, the release and any itemized charges are recorded and reflected in your ledger.