How to transfer a deposit with VAT in Mews Operations

In Mews Operations, you use deposits to track prepayments that include value-added tax (VAT). Deposits keep your financial records accurate by separating prepayments from revenue and applying tax at the time of payment. During onboarding, you may encounter scenarios where a previous PMS already processed the payment and declared the tax. You need to follow this process to prevent declaring taxes twice and to ensure the system deducts the deposit from the guest’s bill.

 

Note: Use this process only during onboarding and only when you already declared tax in a different property management system.

 

In this article you can learn about:

• Prerequisites to transferring deposits with VAT
• Step 1: Create a deposit in Mews Operations
• Step 2: Check that prepayments post correctly in Mews Operations

 

Prerequisites to transferring deposits with VAT

Before you transfer a deposit, you need to set up an accounting category and product so you can identify the transferred amounts in Mews.

 

To set up a cross-settlement product:

1. Create a dedicated accounting category  so that you can track it in reports. For example, cross settlement.
2. Create a product with an overridable price and tax rate. Note: Use the same VAT rate as your accommodation or stay service.
3. Assign the accounting category to the product you create.

 

Step 1: Create a deposit in Mews Operations

When you post a manual prepayment with VAT, you create a deposit and offset the positive balance to maintain a balanced ledger.

 

1. To create a deposit, open the reservation in Mews Operations. Note: You can search for reservations or open them from the Timeline.

2. Go to the Items tab > Additional expenses > New deposit.

• Currency: Choose the correct currency.
• Amount: Enter the prepayment value.
• Tax rate: Choose the accommodation or stay tax rate.

3. Click Create.

4. Offset the positive deposit using a negative product:

1. On the Billing screen click the Bill under Unpaid items / Deposits.
2. Click Deposit.
3. Click the checkbox next to the Deposit item which has a positive amount.
4. Click Move > Create a new bill.
5. Name: Enter a name. For example, Prepayment in previous PMS.
6. Click Create and move. A new bill appears on the Billing screen.
7. Under the new bill click Add product and click the product you configured under Prerequisites. Note: Do not link the product to the reservation. If you link the product to the reservation, it stays on the deposit ledger until check-in, which causes an inaccurate balance.
8. Enter the same amount as the positive deposit as a negative amount. For example, - €230
9. Click Next then Submit.
10. Click Close on the bill.
11. Keep the negative deposit and stay items open until the guest checks out.

 

Step 2: Check that prepayments post correctly in Mews Operations

1. In Mews Operations, go to the main menu > Finance > Accounting report.
2. Click to select the following filters:

• Type: Select Created.
• Mode: Select Grouped.
• Start and End: Select the date range for when you created the deposit.
  For example, if you create all deposits between March 15 and March 16, click those dates.
• Group by: Select Accounting Catagory.

3. Click View report. Check that the deposit and cross-settlement product appear correctly in the Transactions section of the report.

 

This transfers the deposit.

 

You can learn more about transferring payments from your old PMS here.