Sometimes you might come across a transaction that doesn’t look quite right—maybe there’s a credit on someone’s account you don’t recognize, or your owner payout doesn’t match what you were expecting. Whatever the situation, here are some steps and places to check when investigating a transaction.
Where to Look for Transactions
Receivables and Payables
Found under Accounting
Search by person, property, status (paid or outstanding), amount, or date range.
This is a great place to start if you’re tracking down whether a tenant payment or vendor bill has been entered.
General Ledger
Found under Accounting > Accounts you can click on the general ledger account to view every posted transaction in that account.
Use this view if you need the “big picture” of all activity within an account.
If looking for a deposit or payment that was made click on the bank account and filter the dates and property to narrow your results.
From there you can click on the transaction to see more detail. If it was a deposit or payment for an invoice or bill you can click on the transaction line to view the invoice or bill that was paid.
Tenant Financial Page
Found under Tenants > Tenant profile > Financials
Shows charges, credits, and payments for a tenant
By default, the transactions displayed are the ones that are outstanding or haven't been cleared yet.
If you click on Show Paid all transactions will display. The date the invoice was paid will also display.
Click on a transaction to view more detail
Lease Unit Invoices
Found under Property > Unit > Unit Invoices
Shows all invoices for the unit
By default, the transactions displayed are the ones that are outstanding or haven't been cleared yet.
If you click on Show Paid all transactions will display. The date the invoice was paid will also display.
Click on a transaction to view more detail
Property Finances
Found under Property > Financials
Shows all entries into a specific General Ledger
Search the General Ledger account, by owner, and dates
Click on an entry to view more detail
What to Check on an Invoice
When you open an invoice, confirm the details to make sure everything lines up:
Posting Date – When the transaction was recorded.
Due Date – When payment was expected.
Paid Date – When payment was actually made.
If the invoice is marked as paid, look at how it was paid:
If paid through Autopay, the description will clearly say Autopay Collection.
Inside the invoice, you’ll see a breakdown of the individual transactions—including descriptions and amounts. If you need to make changes on an invoice or record a special situation please use the notes feature to communicate with your team.
Extra Audit Trail
On the bottom left of every invoice, deposit, bill, or transaction, you’ll see a time stamp that shows:
When the entry was created and who created it. If Propra created it through an automated feature it will say System
If any changes were made it will say Updated or Edited with the user who made the change
Important to Keep in Mind
Changes to existing transactions can affect your accounting history:
Editing after an owner payout or bank reconciliation will change those past records.
Backdating a payment (posting it as paid on an earlier date) will update reports for that period.
Because of this, always double-check before editing or backdating a transaction. If you’re unsure, it may be better to add an adjustment rather than changing the original entry.
Investigating Unexpected Changes to Owner Payout Balances
If an owner's payout amount has suddenly changed or become negative, a common cause is that a transaction was edited after the original payout was calculated. This often happens when a transaction is backdated and posted to a previous accounting period.
Because owner payouts are calculated based on the transactions posted during a specific period, editing or adding transactions to a prior date can change the owner's balance and affect future payouts.
How to Investigate
Navigate to Reports and run the Owner Payout Report.
Review the report for the current period and note the payout amount.
Run the same report for previous periods and compare the payout balances.
Continue working backward until you identify the period where the payout amount changes unexpectedly.
Once you have identified the date range where the balance changed, review transactions posted during that period.
Look for transactions that may have been:
Edited after the payout was processed
Backdated to a prior period
Deleted and recreated with different dates or amounts
Reclassified to a different property, unit, or owner
Next Steps
After identifying the transaction that caused the balance change, determine whether the adjustment was intentional. If the change is correct, you may need to account for the difference in a future owner payout. If the change was made in error, the transaction can be corrected and the owner balance recalculated.
When investigating owner balance discrepancies, comparing Owner Payout Reports across multiple periods is often the fastest way to pinpoint when the issue first occurred.
Preventing Future Issues
To prevent transactions from being edited after owner payouts have been processed, consider enabling transaction locking in your Financial Settings.
Navigate to Settings > Accounting > Financial Settings > Company Information and set a lock date that corresponds with your completed owner payout period. This prevents users from editing, deleting, or posting transactions prior to the selected date, helping ensure that previously calculated owner payouts remain unchanged.
Using a lock date is a best practice for accounting controls and can significantly reduce the risk of unexpected changes to owner balances and payout amounts.
Final Tip
When something doesn’t add up, following these steps will usually help you track down the issue. Between the Receivables/Payables search, General Ledger, Tenant Financial Page, and invoice details, you’ll have a clear trail to piece together what happened.