How to refund a security deposit and claim damages from the guest

Unfortunately from time to time the guests cause damages in excess of the security deposit or damage waiver policy which means you have to charge them an excess.  Within iPro you can utilise our security deposit feature to charge the guest the additional amount.

It is important that when charging guests for additional damages that you keep a full audit trail of your communications and provide photographic evidence of the charges and retain all invoices.

Scenarios for taking an additional security deposit, when guests have caused excess damage

• How to claim an amount higher than the amount taken as a security deposit?
• How to record additional damages when no security deposit was taken?

How to claim an amount higher than the amount taken as a security deposit?

1/ The first step is to increase the security deposit amount, in this example the amount for the security deposit was £350.  However the damage caused by the guest is £700, so we will increase this to £700

With the original amount at £350, we will simply overwrite this amount to £750.  iPro will automatically calculate that the guest owes an additional £350.

A new item will appear in the payment schedule for the additional £350, I can now process a payment against this line item.

2/ Process the payment for the additional £350 in damages, and then refresh the screen.

3/ Click 'Refund Security Deposit', you should see that the deposit amount equals the total amount taken in this case £700.  If it doesn't you will need to reload your browser to ensure the last payment has refreshed correctly.

4/ Now you can update the refund security deposit screen as follows:

i. How much of the deposit should be refunded? Set to £0

ii. How much of the deposit should be kept? Set to £700

iii. Provide a reason to what the charges are for, this will appear on the owner statement

iv. Amount payable to owner? Set to £700 or to the amount agreed with the owner, you can set this to more or less than what you have charged the guest.

5/ Click 'Save', this will then create a damage payment from the guest and marked as paid and will create a credit to the owner for the damages caused.

How to record additional damages when no security deposit was taken?

The first step is to add a security deposit to the booking to the value of the charge you wish to apply for the damages, you will see within the booking that the security deposit will be set to 'None'

1/ Update this and click 'Security Deposit', you will then need to enter the amount that you wish to charge the guest.  In the example below I am looking to charge the guest £177 for the additional damages.

2/ The booking will now update and you will be able to take a payment for the additional £177, to process the payment click 'Pay' next to the line item Rental Security Deposit, once the payment has been processed refresh your browser window.

3/ You will now have the orange button 'Refund Security Deposit', click this and process the damage charge for £177

i. How much of the deposit should be refunded? Set to £0

ii. How much of the deposit should be kept? Set to £177

iii. Provide a reason to what the charges are for, this will appear on the owner statement

iv. Amount payable to owner? Set to £177 or to the amount agreed with the owner, you can set this to more or less than what you have charged the guest.

4/ Click 'Save', this will then create a damage payment from the guest and marked as paid and will create a credit to the owner for the damages caused.

In this example the credit will appear on the October Statement for the owner.