You ran the Guest Balances report as of a prior month-end (for example, April 30). The only remaining items on it are reservations that are canceled, have a future check-in date, and are marked as paid. They still show open balances. Why aren't they zero?

The Guest Balances report shows the per-reservation balance of your Guest Deposits (net of A/R) account as of the date you chose. For a canceled and "paid" reservation to show a balance on that snapshot, one of these is true on the as-of date:

In each case the books are doing what they're supposed to do — the open balance represents money you were still holding in trust on that date.

The Guest Balances report is a per-reservation view of the Guest Deposits (net of A/R) liability account. On any given as-of date, that account holds:

When you choose an as-of date, the report only includes transactions whose posting date falls on or before that date. Transactions dated after the as-of date — including refunds and revenue recognition — aren't reflected yet.

Imagine a $13,855 reservation that checks in August 1. Here's how its activity posts to Guest Deposits (net of A/R):

Today the reservation looks fully resolved: net zero, payment status "paid." But if you run the report as of April 30, only the March 9 line is on the books — the refund and revenue recognition haven't posted yet. So this reservation shows an open balance of +$13,855 on the April 30 snapshot.

This is correct. On April 30 you really were still holding $13,855 in trust on behalf of this guest — the refund went out five days later.

If the cancellation happened in May but your snapshot is April 30, the reservation was still an active future booking on that date. The guest's prepayment is sitting in Guest Deposits (net of A/R) as an advance deposit liability. That's the normal, expected state for any paid future reservation.

Cancellation marks the reservation's payment lines inactive, but the actual refund to the guest is a separate transaction with its own posting date — typically the date your payment processor (Stripe, etc.) issued the payout. If the cancellation happened in late April but the refund payout posted on May 5, the April 30 snapshot shows the original payment with no offsetting refund.

When a guest forfeits part of their payment as a cancellation fee, VRTrust recognizes that revenue on the original check-in date — not the cancellation date. Between the cancellation and the check-in date, the retained amount sits in Guest Deposits (net of A/R). This keeps cancellation revenue in the correct period (the period the stay would have happened) and avoids cluttering current-period revenue with non-stay income.

Usually nothing. These balances clear themselves in the period when the refund posts or the original check-in date passes. They appear "open" on your April 30 snapshot but they're not action items.

You should investigate only if:

Once you close the books at a given date, transactions dated on or before that date can no longer be modified. The April 30 snapshot is a true point-in-time view: whatever activity was on the books at that moment is what the report shows, and nothing can be backdated to change it. To clear a stuck balance, you make a new adjustment dated in the open period — see Guest balances review: Adding financial adjustments (VRTrust).