Deposits

This standard governs customer deposits in the accounting system of All About Pawz, LLC: money collected before the work is done, such as a grooming appointment hold or a down payment on a custom order. A deposit is a liability, not revenue: the Company holds the customer's money and owes the customer the service. A deposit becomes revenue only when it is applied to an invoice for completed work or forfeited under the terms stated to the customer at collection. The Accounting Operator collects, applies, releases, and refunds deposits; forfeiture requires the Accounting Manager's approval recorded on the deposit. Everything in this standard protects the distinction between money held and money earned, because recognizing deposit money as revenue early misstates the books.

The lifecycle

Every deposit moves through a fixed sequence of states: held, released, refunded, forfeited: and the actions refuse a move the state does not allow, with an error, rather than completing silently.

Collect.

1. Create the deposit record in held state, recording the collection time and the deposit number.
2. State the deposit terms at collection: the refund terms and the forfeiture terms. That conversation happens once, at collection, not when the customer cancels.
3. Post the books entry: cash debited, customer-deposits liability credited.
4. Mind the units: the entry screen sends cents and the record stores dollars. A cents-and-dollars mix-up is a hundredfold error, and the operator verifies the recorded amount against the amount collected before leaving the record.

Apply.

1. Apply the deposit against the invoice balance when the work is complete and the invoice is issued: not before. See Invoices.
2. In the register sale's books entry, an applied deposit appears as a debit relieving the liability against the revenue credited on the sale; without that line the entry is short by exactly the deposit amount and the register's balance check stops the sale, under Register.

Release.

1. Release returns the money without applying it, where the service was cancelled on refundable terms. Only a held deposit may be released; any other state is refused.
2. Post the books entry: liability debited, cash credited.
3. Record the release reason, distinguishing a refund under the stated terms from an exception made for the customer.

Forfeit.

1. Forfeiture applies where the customer cancelled outside the refund terms: the no-show, the late cancellation. Only a held deposit may be forfeited.
2. Post the books entry: customer-deposits liability debited, revenue credited.
3. Record, on the deposit, the terms the customer agreed to at collection, the cancellation facts, and the Accounting Manager's approval. Forfeiture is the one deposit movement that creates revenue without an invoice, so it carries the fullest record of any deposit action.

Refund.

1. A refund returns collected deposit money outside the standard release path, by the Accounting Manager's decision or under the deposit terms, with a reason recorded on the deposit.
2. Deposit refunds are handled under the Returns and Refunds Policy.

Transfer.

1. A transfer moves a deposit from one appointment or customer to another, recording the source, the destination, the time, and the reason, so the deposit's history remains one connected record.
2. A transfer is not a release followed by a new collection. Two separate records invite the argument that the first deposit was never returned; one transfer record with both ends closes that argument.
3. Before training staff on transfers, the Accounting Manager confirms the transfer action is present in the administrative build in use.

The online path: booking deposits

Online booking deposits enter the books through the payment webhook, which posts checking debited, customer-deposits liability credited: expressly not revenue. When the appointment completes and the sale posts through the register, the applied-deposit line relieves the liability. The full course of a booking deposit is therefore: liability created at payment, liability relieved and revenue recognized at completion. A deposits liability that grows without bound means the second half is not happening: deposits are being collected but never applied or released: and the queue procedure below applies.

Watching the queue

1. Work from the collected-but-unapplied view. Every deposit in it is either future work to perform or money to return.
2. Run the stale-deposit check at least monthly: every deposit held past its expected service date needs a disposition. A deposit for an appointment that has passed and was never applied means either the appointment happened and nobody invoiced it, or it never happened and the deposit is still owed back.
3. Keep deposit types separate. An appointment hold and a custom-order deposit carry different terms when the customer cancels and are not interchangeable.
4. Reconcile the deposits liability monthly: every held deposit maps to a future appointment or a pending decision. Anything else is stale.

Unclaimed deposits that sit indefinitely become a stale liability and a customer-relations problem when the customer eventually asks, and may carry obligations under state unclaimed-property rules; the Accounting Manager refers any long-unclaimed deposit to legal@aapawz.com before treating it as the Company's money.

Controls

• Every deposit action posts its books entry automatically on a best-effort basis: a failed posting is recorded as an error and the deposit record still stands. The operator searches the journal by the deposit number for any action whose entry is in doubt and posts the missing entry manually under Troubleshooting (Accounting Troubleshooting).
• No operator works around a state refusal by editing a deposit's state directly. The refusal is part of the record. Where money must come back after a deposit has been applied, that is a refund against the invoice, not a deposit release.
• Separation of duties: the person who collects a deposit does not approve its forfeiture, and the person who releases or refunds a deposit does not reconcile the account it posts to.

Records created and where they are kept

Deposit records, their state history, transfer records, terms acknowledgments, forfeiture approvals, and the related journal entries are kept in the accounting and commerce records and retained under the Regulatory Record Retention Policy.

Escalation

A forfeiture the customer disputes, a deposit with no terms on file, or a long-unclaimed deposit goes to the Accounting Manager; disputed forfeitures and legal process go to legal@aapawz.com. Operational failures in the deposit actions go to support@aapawz.com.

Review cadence

The Accounting Operator works the unapplied queue weekly. The Accounting Manager reconciles the deposits liability monthly, reviews every forfeiture monthly, and reviews this standard annually.