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 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).
Security deposit — appears only when the lease has a deposit. Shows the amount held versus the amount charged (e.g., $500 / $500, “Held in full”). The deposit is not rent: it’s tracked separately and kept out of Total charges, Total payments, the Balance due, and the by-month strip.

Why deposits are separate: a security deposit is money you hold in trust, not rent income. Keeping it out of the rent figures means “what the tenant owes in rent” stays honest. So a tenant who has paid both their deposit and their first month shows the deposit in its own card and the rent as paid — not a single combined balance. A paid deposit will never zero out, or count against, the rent balance.

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, oldest first. Each row shows:

Date — when the entry happened.
Description — e.g., “Rent — November 2026” or “Late fee — October 2026”.
Charges / Payments — the dollar amount. Charges show in red; payments show in green.
Balance — the running balance after that row, working down from the oldest entry. A positive number is what the tenant owed at that point; a number marked “unapplied” means they had paid more than had been charged so far.

Prepaying looks like “unapplied” — and that’s normal. When a tenant pays at signing for a lease that starts next month, the money lands before the charges are due: the deposit charge is dated to the lease start, and the first month’s rent to its due date — both in the future. So the Balance column shows those early payments as “unapplied” credit until the charges post, even though the lease is fully paid. Read the last (bottom) row: if it says $0.00, the tenant is square.

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.

Issuing credits

There are two ways to credit a tenant:

A standalone credit (the Issue credit button) — not tied to any charge. Use it when the tenant is owed money against whatever comes next: a move-in incentive, comp for a broken appliance, an owner-absorbed cost.
A credit against a specific charge — hover the charge row and click the badge icon. Use it to waive or discount that charge (full or partial); Habitia won’t let the credits on a charge exceed the charge itself.

Both ask for a reason, which is stored on the entry for the audit trail — a future concessions report shows every adjustment with its why.

Attaching evidence. Both credit dialogs have an Evidence section — attach screenshots, receipts, or a PDF backing the credit (the tenant’s Venmo screenshot, the repair invoice you’re compensating, the email where you agreed to it). Files upload when you save. You can also add or view evidence after the fact: every credit row in the ledger has a paperclip icon that opens its attachments.

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.

Downloading the ledger

Above the entry list, two export buttons:

Export PDF — a formatted statement with the tenant’s name, the unit’s full address, the lease term, the three summary totals, and every entry with its running balance. Follows your app language (English or Spanish). Perfect for a tenant who asks for “an account statement,” a court filing, or an owner’s records.
Export CSV — the raw rows for Excel or your accountant.

Tenants have the same Download statement (PDF) link on their portal’s Payments page, so they can self-serve without asking you.

Refunding an online payment

Made through Stripe (card or ACH) and needs to go back? On the Payments page, admins see a Refund action on settled Stripe payments. Enter the amount (full or partial) and confirm.

The money is pulled back from your Stripe payout account and returned to the tenant’s original payment method. Card refunds land in days; ACH refunds can take several business days.
Habitia’s platform fee is returned proportionally, so you don’t eat it.
Once Stripe confirms, a reversal automatically appears on the lease ledger, re-opening the balance — you don’t post anything by hand.

Note: Cash, check, and ATH Móvil payments can’t be refunded through Stripe — reverse the ledger entry instead and return the money however it came in.

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 or credit to attach a receipt or proof.

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.