You are changing your internal rent account list. The previously confirmed outstanding balance is carried over; the old history is also to be preserved. After the merge, the new list suddenly shows a higher arrears balance, even though no new item was added in the relevant period. The error may lie in the chosen transfer model.
This editorial aid works exclusively with expressly fictitious starting positions assumed to be clarified. It does not determine an actual rent debt and does not replace a legal allocation of payments.
Describe the transition before copying
Set a clear cut-off date and save the previous list unchanged. Describe what the confirmed closing balance contains. Which old individual items explain this balance, and which transactions occurred only afterwards? A later payment receipt will not be quietly moved back into an earlier opening balance.
Then decide whether the new running balance begins with a brought-forward balance (Saldenvortrag) or reproduces the complete old history. The two models can explain the same balance. However, they must not at the same time increase its components again.
Fictional case: 400 becomes 800 without a new transaction
At the cut-off date, two clarified outstanding residual items are present in the invented case: 150 euros from February and 250 euros from March. Together they amount to 400 euros. There are no other old outstanding items in this simplified example.
The new list takes over 400 euros as the opening balance and adds 150 euros and 250 euros below that as further outstanding claims. Their addition results in 800 euros. The second half is not newly arisen arrears: the same assumed old items were accounted for twice.
- Saldenvortrag – treatment of the old items: 400 euros are carried over; 150 and 250 appear only in the separate explanation; opening balance in the example: 400 euros
- Vollständige Historie – treatment of the old items: 150 and 250 are calculated once; no additional 400-euro brought-forward balance; opening balance in the example: 400 euros
The figures are pure assumptions. The case does not confirm a claim against any specific person.
Keep the explanation visible
In the example the landlord chooses the brought-forward balance start. She preserves the old individual items with receipts as an explanation and labels that these are already included in the opening balance. New transactions after the cut-off date are recorded separately.
This keeps the origin of the 400-euro start explainable without listing the positions contained in it again as additional claims. The old list is not deleted so that the transfer can be reviewed afterwards.
Proofread before the next arrears notification
Check whether the old closing balance and the new opening balance fit at the same point in time. Can you find each old residual item exactly once? Was a mere explanatory line accidentally included in the running total?
If the starting position itself is unclear or disputed, this question is clarified separately before a reliable demand notice. The arithmetically matching transfer does not prove entitlement to a claim.
Record the correction actually made with date and justification. Also check any prepared letters that may still contain the double-counted amount. The result is a comprehensible transition with the old balance taken into account once and the history preserved.