Monthly Float for all homes

Trust Accounting in Short Term Rental

Victoria is one of the only states in Australia that doesn't yet enforce Trust Accounting on our industry, and the State Revenue Office has indicated that they will be moving to it in the near future. In Short Term Rental (STR), Trust Accounting is a process (required by Law, once introduced) that a business such as ours treats each individual Property as a separate entity for income and expenses. This means when an invoice is 'posted' in our accounting system and we pay the service provider, the funds to pay that invoice must come from the General Ledger account of the individual property, rather than from a pool of funds.

The types of invoices that we pay on your behalf each month will vary, but can include:

1. Cleaner (including laundering linen, replacing BBQ gas bottles, purchasing consumables, etc.)
   
2. Handyman, Plumber, Electrician
3. Lawn mowing/Gardener,
   
4. Spa/pool technician,
   
5. Rubbish bin collection
   

Please refer to Expected Running Costs for more information about these types of costs.

What did we do in the past?

In the past, we would pay all invoices on behalf of owners, and if their Property did not have enough balance in that moment to cover the invoice, we would 'loan' the money (which would then appear on your Monthly Statement as a Manager Loan). These funds would come from a pool of our funds, effectively acting as an interest free loan to owners. It would then be repaid once your property received some income from the next booking (sometimes these Manager Loans could sit on a Property's General Ledger for several months if they were substantial). This loan arrangement will become illegal once Trust Accounting is enshrined in Law in Victoria.

Doesn't my home have ?

In the past, we would pay all invoices on behalf of owners, and if their Property did not have enough balance in that moment to cover the invoice, we would 'loan' the money (which would then appear on your Monthly Statement as a Manager Loan). These funds would come from a pool of our funds, effectively acting as an interest free loan to owners. It would then be repaid once your property received some income from the next booking (sometimes these Manager Loans could sit on a Property's General Ledger for several months if they were substantial). This loan arrangement will become illegal once Trust Accounting is enshrined in Law in Victoria.

How do other professional STR companies deal with this?

We regularly meet & share best-practice ideas with other businesses that provide STR management in other states, and the industry standard approach to dealing with some of the challenges that Trust Accounting creates, involves several 'levers', including:

1. Introducing a float to ensure that each Property has sufficent funds to cover day-today expenses 
2. Paying cleaners & contractors more frequently (to reduce the time taken at the beginning of each month to pay suppliers and 'close' the month)
   
3. Paying owners as soon as possible once the previous month has been closed

The Float

We will hold a float for each Property, usually of $500, (starting November 2025) to ensure there are funds to cover the day-to-day expenses. In the very rare case that you have requested work that exceeds this value, our Accounts team will contact you and request the additional payment. This is a rolling float - we will pay you (into your bank account) your net payment (income less expenses) each month, and withhold a float of $500.

Changing how we pay cleaners and contractors

In conjunction with a move to Trust Accounting, and as part of a strategy of attracting and retaining the best quality service people available in the region to service your home, we will be paying all invoices weekly for cleaners and tradies, commencing in November 2025. This announcement has been extremely well received (particularly by cleaners) who will no longer have to 'carry' some expenses for up to a month (e.g. for consumables).

Paying you sooner

Traditionally, the first 2 weeks of every month have been an increasingly challenging process (as the number of Properties under management has increased). Our amazing Accounts team has been collecting invoices, allocating costs to Properties, checking for errors & then paying cleaners and tradies. All of this needs to happen before we can 'close' off a month and pay you, the Owner. With weekly invoice payment, the process of monthly balancing will have been spread out over the proceeding weeks, allowing us to finalise the remaining invoices quickly, and pay you sooner. 

Monthly Statements

Paying you sooner will lead to the possibility that your Monthly Statement will have related income & expenses appear in different Statements. For example, if a guest books and checks out of your Property in the last few days of November and your cleaner sends through their invoice for the subsequent clean in early December, your November Monthly Statement may reflect the income from the booking, but not the expense of the cleaning related to that booking. Therefore your December Statement could indicate that there were more cleans than bookings, to reflect this cost from the previous month.

The "float" will show on your Monthly Statement near the bottom as "Payment withheld" - this functionality has always been on your Statements, but from November 2025 onwards, there will be a dollar figure in this field. This means that each month you will see the float at the top of your statement as the first line item under Income (entitled Brought Forward) allowing us to utilise the funds to pay for expenses, and then again at the bottom of your Statement as Payment Withheld for the following Month. For example:

For more detail, please refer to How to Read your Monthly Statement.

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