A deposit is money you are holding, not money you have earned. The Deposit Balances report tracks that money reservation by reservation — what was taken, what has been applied to invoices, what was refunded, what you kept, and what is still being held.
This article assumes you already know the basics of the Sharper reporting module — the Name, Token, Subtotal, column picker, and filter fields. For a full walkthrough of the reporting form itself, see the Sharper Reporting Reference Guide. This article only covers what's specific to Deposit Balances.
Why This Report Matters
Held deposits are a liability on your books, and they are easy to lose track of because they are taken months before they are used. A deposit that was never applied, never refunded, and never written off simply sits there — and it usually surfaces when a guest asks for it back long after the stay. Use this report to:
Total the deposits you are currently holding, for your balance sheet
Find deposits still held against reservations that have already finished or been cancelled
Confirm cancellation deposits were correctly retained or refunded
Check deposits are posting to the general ledger account you expect
Following a Deposit Through Its Life
The value columns describe stages of the same money, so read them together rather than in isolation:
Column | What It Represents |
Deposit Paid | What the customer actually handed over |
Deposit Amount Invoiced | How much of it has been applied against invoices — the deposit doing its job |
Deposit Amount Refunded | How much was given back |
Deposit Amount Retained | How much you kept, typically on a cancellation |
Deposit Amount Journaled | How much was moved by a manual journal entry rather than the normal flow |
Deposit Balance | What is still being held. This is the figure to subtotal when you want your total deposit liability. |
Beginning Balance | What was on the reservation at the start of the reporting period |
A Deposit Balance greater than zero on a reservation that has already departed or been cancelled is money you are holding with no remaining reason to hold it. Those rows are the whole point of running this report — they are either owed back to the customer or should have been retained as revenue, and until one of those happens they sit on your books indefinitely.
Building a Deposit Balances Report
Go to Reports → Accounting → Deposit Balances in the left sidebar.
If a shipped report is close to what you need, use the ⋯ menu → Copy first — shipped reports can only be edited by the Sharper team.
Otherwise click + New and give it a Name, such as "Held Deposits."
Add the columns below from the Available panel.
Set Subtotal to Deposit Balance.
Turn on All Outlets if you report deposit liability across the whole company.
Click Save, then Get Report to run it.
Recommended Columns
Field | What It Shows |
Customer Name, Cust Email, Cust Phone | Whose deposit it is, and how to reach them about a refund |
Reservation ID, Booking ID | The reservation the deposit is held against |
Arrival Date, Departure Date | The stay the deposit relates to — a departure date well in the past is your signal |
Checked In Date, Checked Out Date | What actually happened, as opposed to what was booked |
Reservation Status, Standard Reservation Status | Where the reservation stands. Use Standard Reservation Status when you want the underlying status rather than a custom one your property has configured. |
Cancellation Time, Cancellation Reason | Why a booking ended early — the context for whether a deposit should have been retained |
The deposit value columns | Paid, Invoiced, Refunded, Retained, Journaled, and Balance, as described above |
Deposit GL Account | The general ledger account the deposit posts to — check this matches your deposit liability account |
Deposit Product Name | Which deposit product was used |
Module Name | Whether the deposit came from marina, campground, or booking — group on this to split liability by operation |
Service Fee | Any service fee taken alongside the deposit |
Payment Date, Payment Type, Payment Method | How the deposit was taken — needed when refunding to the original tender |
Credit Card Last 4, Credit Card Auth, Gateway Transaction | Card references for matching against your processor |
Unit Name | The slip or space the reservation was for |
Special Request | Notes captured on the booking |
Useful Filters
Total deposits held: Field Deposit Balance, operator >, value 0, subtotalled on Deposit Balance.
Stale deposits to resolve: Deposit Balance greater than 0 And Departure Date operator < today. This is the actionable list.
Cancelled bookings still holding money: Deposit Balance greater than 0 And Cancellation Time set to is not empty.
Deposits by operation: Field Module Name, set to Marina, Campground, or Booking.
Deposits on the wrong account: Field Deposit GL Account, set to anything other than your intended liability account.
Refunds issued in a period: Field Deposit Amount Refunded, operator >, value 0, with a date range.
The stale-deposit filter is worth running monthly. It rarely takes long to clear, and left alone it grows into a liability nobody can explain.