If you've received a trust accounting warning, that means that a property or association you're paying an expense for does not have enough money available to cover the transaction.
There are two reasons this could happen:
- The property, association, or rental owner doesn't have enough money in the particular bank account you're paying a bill from
- The property, association, or rental owner doesn't have enough available money overall to pay this bill.
By enabling trust account warnings, you've told the system to let you know any time you're about to fall into one of the above scenarios. The best way to troubleshoot this is to run a balance sheet for the property or or owner you received the warning for.
Common reasons why a property may not have enough money in a specific bank account:
1. The money is still sitting in undeposited funds
Run a balance sheet for the current date. If there is money sitting in undeposited funds for the property you're working with, you will see the following on the report:
This means you have received a payment from a tenant in Buildium, but not yet shown the payment as deposited in the bank account.
To fix this:
- Navigate to Accounting > Banking.
- Then, click on the default bank account for the property.
- Click Record deposit, and select the bank account you want the money to go into.
- Fill out the date of the deposit, memo, and select the payment from the undeposited funds section.
- When you're done, click Save.
2. You have pending EFTs, which have not yet funded.
Run a balance sheet for the current date. If there are any EFTs that are still pending for the property you're working with, you will see the following on the report:
This means a tenant or association owner has paid their rent or dues, but the money has not funded into your bank account yet.
In this situation, you will need to wait for the transaction to fund before you're able to pay any expenses or make owner disbursements.
3. The money is in a different bank account
Run a balance sheet for the current date. If there is money for the property in multiple bank accounts, you will see the following on the report:
This means the owner or property has money available, but it's available in a different bank account than the one you're writing an expense from.
The first troubleshooting tip is to make sure you're writing the expense or disbursement out of the correct bank account.
For example: Based on the balance sheet above, you have enough money in the Client Trust account to cover a $4200 expense. If you are attempting to write that check out of the Operating Bank Account, you will receive a trust account warning, because there is not enough money in that particular account to cover the expense. The solution could be as simple as changing the bank account you're writing the check from, if that is what you plan to do in the real world.
If you noticed on the balance sheet that you deposited the money into the incorrect bank account in Buildium, you can delete the deposit if it isn't reconciled, and then take the steps to deposit the money into the proper account.
If you deposited the money into the wrong bank account in the real world, you'll want to record a transfer of funds from one bank account to another instead.