VRTrust Terminology & Core Concepts

This article explains the key terms and accounting concepts you’ll see throughout VRTrust. Understanding this vocabulary will make onboarding, reconciliation, and month-end close significantly easier.

Trust accounting is the practice of holding and tracking guest funds separately from the property manager’s operating funds. These funds belong to owners (and sometimes taxing authorities) until they are paid out.

VRTrust is built specifically to support trust accounting for short-term rentals.

The trust account is the bank account where:

VRTrust focuses on tracking activity in this account to ensure all funds are accounted for and distributed correctly.

The trust balance represents:

This balance should always reconcile to your trust bank account.

VRTrust helps identify and explain both scenarios clearly.

The guest is the customer who:

Guest payments flow into the trust account and are later allocated.

The owner is the property owner entitled to:

Owner activity appears on Owner Statements.

The property manager:

Property manager activity appears on the Property Management Statement.

A record of a financial event. In VRTrust, there are five types of transactions: Reservation, Deposit, Expense, Fee/Commission and Transfer.

The general ledger is the complete accounting record of:

VRTrust includes a full, built-in general ledger—no external accounting system is required.

The chart of accounts is the list of all accounts used to record transactions.

VRTrust provides a default, short-term-rental–specific chart of accounts.

A category in which to track Transactions. A Journal Entry Line records a Debit or Credit to an Account.

Identifies an account as one of these types:

Account assignments define which accounts are used automatically when certain transactions occur.

They control where transactions post in the general ledger.

For example, the Guest Deposits (net of A/R) account has an assignment of Accounts Receivable

An accounting tool used to record a Transaction in the General Ledger. Each Journal Entry has a minimum of two Journal Entry Lines and must have balanced Debits and Credits.

A dimension assigned to Journal Entry Lines that enables reporting on Transactions and balances in an Account.

There are three tags in VRTrust: Party, Reservation and Listing.

The sum of all journal entry lines recorded to the account with a journal entry date prior to the beginning date of the period specified with the Date filter.

The sum of all journal entry lines recorded to the account with a journal entry date prior to and including the ending date of the period specified with the Date filter.

A reservation represents a guest booking synced from your PMS. It includes:

Reservations are the foundation of most financial activity in VRTrust.

The guest balance shows:

VRTrust flags reservations with non-zero guest balances so they can be resolved before month-end.

A financial adjustment changes the amount owed by the guest, such as:

These adjustments affect guest balances and trust totals.

A fee adjustment changes how revenue is allocated between:

Fee adjustments do not change what the guest paid—only who receives the revenue.

A deposit represents a payment or payout event, often from:

Deposits are used to:

Merchant fees are processing fees charged by payment providers (e.g. Stripe).

These may be:

Owner statements summarize:

They are typically published monthly.

PM statements show:

The trial balance is a report showing:

A balanced trial balance confirms that the accounting system is internally consistent.

Revenue recognition determines when revenue appears, not just where it appears.

In VRTrust, revenue can be recognized:

Deferred revenue represents income that:

This is commonly used when payments are received before the stay occurs.

In VRTrust:

Understanding these concepts makes every other workflow in VRTrust clearer and more predictable.