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Everyday running
- Residents
- Rent and payments
- Dues and reminders
- Deposits and advances
- Expenses and profit
- Mess and meals
- Reports and dashboard
- Laundry and food for residents
- Importing residents safely
- Room changes, checkout and resident requests
- Payment approvals
- Billing periods, installments and rent reviews
- Room electricity and resident charges
- Utility connections and bills
- Inventory and room assets
- Bank accounts and wallets
Filling your beds
Your team and residents
Security deposits, advances and refunds
Some of the money in your drawer is not income. It is money you are holding and will one day give back. Houstel.pk keeps that money separate so your profit figure stays honest.
Step by step
Where to go: Payments → Advances; resident booking → checkout
Who can use it: The hostel owner, or staff with access to this feature. Some actions need additional permission.
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Identify the kind of money
Keep security deposits, advance rent and ordinary payments distinct. Open the resident’s record before allocating or returning money.
Identify the kind of money · Example with dummy data. Select the image to enlarge. -
Reconcile the refund
Review charges and deductions at checkout. Record the actual refund separately from an amount promised or held for later, and keep its receipt.
Before you finish, and when something goes wrong
- Do not treat a deposit as earned rent. Verify the latest balance before using an advance and before refunding it.
If a save times out, check the record before repeating it. If access is denied, ask the owner to review your hostel assignment and permissions. Never share your login to work around an access restriction.
Related help
Three kinds of money pass through a hostel that are not income: the security deposit you hold, rent paid before its month arrives, and a deposit you have not returned yet. Handled loosely they make good months look better than they were and check-out months look like losses. Handled properly they take care of themselves.
Security deposits
A deposit is your resident's money, in your keeping. It is recorded when they join, it sits against their booking, and most of it goes back when they leave.
Because of that, it is deliberately kept out of your income. Four admissions in one month means four deposits in your drawer: real cash, but not earnings. If it were counted as income, that month would look excellent and the month those four people left would look like a disaster, and neither picture would be true.
You will see it in the right places: in your cash totals, because the money is genuinely there, and on its own line rather than mixed into rent.
At check-out
You have three options, and you can combine them:
- Return all of it. Recorded, and the resident's account shows it.
- Deduct and return the rest. Damage, a lost key, unpaid rent. Record the deduction with a reason, and the reason stays attached.
- Hold it and pay later. Sometimes the money is not in the drawer that day. Record it as still owed and pay it when you can, including in parts.
A deposit you kept back at check-out stays on the books as owed to that person until you have paid it. It does not quietly disappear because the resident left, and you can look up at any time who is still waiting for money from you, which is the one thing most hostels lose track of.
Advance payments
A resident pays six months up front, or a parent settles the year before going abroad. This is not six months of income today. It is money you are holding, that becomes income one month at a time.
Record it as an advance, and from then on:
- The money shows as held, so you know it is spoken for.
- Each month's rent is taken out of it as that month arrives.
- The resident shows as paid for those months, so they never appear on your overdue list.
- Your monthly income shows one month's rent per month, which is what actually happened.
If they leave with money left over, what remains is theirs, and it is refunded the same way a deposit is.
Money taken before somebody moves in
Somebody reserves a bed for next month and pays to hold it. Record it as an advance against them, and it is waiting to be applied when their stay actually starts. If they never turn up and you refund it, that is recorded too, and your income for the month is not left carrying rent for a bed nobody slept in.
Why this is worth the small extra care
Because it is the difference between knowing your profit and guessing it. A hostel that counts deposits and advances as income sees a strong March, a weak September and cannot explain either. A hostel that separates them can look at any month and know what it actually earned and, just as usefully, how much of the cash on hand is not really its own.
Once a year, look at the total deposits you are holding. That figure is money you will eventually hand back. Owners who know it are rarely caught short in a month when several people leave at once.
Refunds in general
Anything you give back (a deposit, an unused advance, an overpayment) is recorded as a refund rather than as a negative payment. That keeps the original payment intact and honest: the resident really did pay you Rs 15,000 in January, and you really did return Rs 12,000 in June, and both facts survive in the record.
In short
- Deposits are money you hold, not money you have earned, so they stay out of income by design.
- At check-out: return it, deduct with a reason, or hold it and pay later. Partial payouts are fine.
- A held-back deposit stays tracked as owed to that person until you pay it.
- Money paid for several months ahead should be an advance, so income lands one month at a time.
- Refunds are recorded as refunds, never by editing away the original payment.
Common questions
Why is the security deposit not in my income?
Because it is not yours yet. It is money you are holding for the resident, and most of it goes back to them when they leave. Counting it as income would make a good month look better than it was and a check-out month look like a loss.
Someone paid three months in advance. How do I record that?
Record it as an advance. It sits as money held, and each month's rent is taken out of it as that month comes around, so the resident shows as paid and your monthly income stays accurate.
I could not return the whole deposit on the day they left.
Record what you returned. The rest stays on the books as owed to that person until you pay it, and you can settle it in parts.
Still stuck?
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