How do I refund an application fee?

Sometimes, the leasing process with an applicant may fall through and you will need to refund their application fee.

In Buildium, there is not a native way to issue a refund to an applicant who has not been entered as a tenant yet. If you entered the application fee manually into Buildium, you will need to show a manual refund by check.

It's important to note: if you received an application fee electronically, it is not possible to refund it electronically through Buildium. You will have to issue the refund manually by check.

There are two ways to record an application fee refund:

1. Use an other bank transaction to represent a refund to an applicant
2. Issue a refund to an applicant using Buildium's check printing feature 

 1. Use an other bank transaction to represent a refund to an applicant

If you're hand writing a check for an application fee refund, the easiest way to record the money leaving your bank account in Buildium is by using an other bank transaction. 

1. Navigate to Accounting > Banking.
2. Click on the bank account you want to issue the refund from.
3. Select Record other transaction.
   
4. Select the property you're refunding the money from, and include Applicant Refund in the memo area.
5. In the offsetting account area, choose Application Fee Income.
   
6. Enter the amount, then choose to Decrease bank account balance. This will show the money leaving your bank account in Buildium, so you can manually write a check for the amount in the real world.
   
   

 2. Add the applicant as a vendor and issue a refund

Because Buildium doesn't allow a refund to be issued directly to an applicant, if you plan on using Buildium's check printing services and need to have the applicant's name on the check, you will need to add the applicant into the system as a new vendor.

Please take note: if the refund you're issuing is more than $600, the vendor you add will show up when it comes time to run your 1099s through Buildium. If you have an applicant refund for $600 or more that you need to issue, we recommend using step 1 in this process above.

To issue a refund to an applicant as a vendor:

1. First, add the applicant as a vendor. The name is the only required field, unless you're using Remote check printing, where you will also need to include an address.
2. Once you have the applicant added as a vendor, navigate to Accounting > Banking.
3. Click on the bank account you want to issue the refund from.
4. Select Record check, and fill out the form. Make sure to select the applicant's name under the vendor field, and choose "Application fee income" as the account type. Enter the amount of the refund, as well as the property the refund was received on.
5. If you will be using check printing through Buildium, select the check box to Queue check for printing.
6. When the form is complete, click Save.
7. If you've queued the check for printing, you can take the next steps to print the check.