Understanding the ledger

Every active lease has a ledger — the running record of what’s been charged, what’s been paid, and what’s still owed. It’s the single source of truth for the financial side of a lease.

Open any lease and scroll to the Ledger section.

The three summary cards

At the top:

Total charges — every rent charge, late fee, and other charge ever posted on this lease.
Total payments — every payment received, online and off-network.
Balance due — what the tenant owes today. If it’s negative, the tenant has an unapplied credit (an overpayment or prepayment that will apply to future months).

The by-month strip

Right under the cards, you’ll see horizontal “month tiles.” Each tile shows one rent period:

Green = Paid in full.
Amber = Partial — the tenant paid some but not all of this month’s rent.
Gray/white = Open — nothing paid for this month yet.

Each tile shows paid / charge (e.g., $800 / $1,200). A separate blue tile may appear at the end labeled Unapplied credit — that’s money the tenant paid ahead of schedule, waiting to apply to a future month.

Tip: Habitia allocates payments FIFO — the oldest open month is paid first. If a tenant overpays, the surplus rolls into the next month automatically. You don’t have to assign payments to specific months by hand.

The entry list

Below the strip, every charge and payment is listed individually, newest first. Each row shows:

Date — when the entry happened.
Description — e.g., “Rent — November 2026” or “Late fee — October 2026”.
Amount — the dollar amount. Charges show in black; payments show in green.
Method (for payments) — cash, check, bank transfer, etc.

The action buttons

Above the entry list, three buttons:

+ Add charge — manually post a non-rent charge (e.g., a utility passthrough, a damage charge, an admin fee).
Issue credit — give the tenant a credit against their balance (e.g., a goodwill adjustment, an early-renewal discount).
Record payment — log a payment that came in off-network. The most common button — see the next article.

Reversing an entry

Made a mistake? Hover any entry, click the trash-like reverse icon, and confirm. Habitia doesn’t actually delete the entry — it posts an opposite “reversal” so the audit trail stays intact, then flags both rows as reversed.

Note: Auto-posted late fees and pre-Habitia historical entries are locked from edits. To remove a late fee that shouldn’t have been posted, reverse it — same as any other entry.

Pre-Habitia history (if it applies)

If you used I’ll enter charges and payments manually when creating a past-dated lease, the historical charges and payments are grouped into their own collapsible section at the top of the ledger. They have a paperclip icon — click it on any past payment to attach a receipt or proof of payment.

What’s next

Recording an off-network payment — the most common ledger action.
Late fees (auto-posting after grace period) — how Habitia handles overdue rent without you having to remember.