Write off rent you will never collect

When a tenant leaves owing rent and there is no realistic way to collect it, write the charge off. That takes the debt off your books, deducts the loss on your tax worksheet, and stops the reminders, without pretending the rent was never charged. This is tooling, not tax advice: your accountant decides what is deductible.

Write off or void? They are not the same

This is the one thing worth getting right, because both actions sit on the same row.

| | Write off | Void | | --- | --- | --- | | What it means | The rent was earned, and you will not collect it | The charge should never have existed | | Use it for | A skip, an eviction, an uncollectible judgment | A duplicate, a typo, a charge on the wrong lease | | Your rental income | Stays as income for the month it was earned | Removed from that month | | Your tax worksheet | Adds a Bad debts deduction (CRA line 8590) this year | Lowers gross rents in the original month | | A closed accounting period | Works. The loss belongs to this year | Refused. Reopen the period first |

If you void a real unpaid month, you rewrite a month your tenant actually lived in, and if you have already filed for that year the numbers no longer match your return. That is why write-off exists.

How to write off a charge

1. Open the tenancy and go to the Money tab.
2. Find the charge under Charges. Choose Write off.
3. Read the amount in the confirmation. It is what is still owed on that charge, not the full amount. A $2,000 month with $500 already paid writes off $1,500.
4. Add a reason. This is optional but worth doing, because it is what your accountant reads when they ask why line 8590 has a number on it. "Tenant skipped, no forwarding address" is enough.
5. Choose Write off charge.

You cannot type an amount, on purpose. Wealthru works out what is still owed from the payments already recorded, so you can never write off more than the tenant actually owes.

What changes afterwards

• The charge is labelled Written off $X. It is not crossed out, because the rent really was charged and really was earned.
• The tenant's balance drops by that amount, and the charge leaves your arrears. Rent reminders, arrears reminders and late fees stop for it.
• Your T776 worksheet gains a Bad debts (8590) line for the year you wrote it off. Your gross rents on line 8141 do not change.
• The tenant statement gains a dated Written off as uncollectible line, and the monthly statement gains a Written off column.
• Your books stay balanced: the amount moves out of rent receivable and into bad debt expense.

Writing off a debt from a year you have already closed

This works, and it is the normal case. The loss belongs to the year you decided the debt was bad, not to the year the rent was due. So a 2025 arrears written off in 2026 shows as a 2026 deduction, and your 2025 books read exactly as you filed them. You do not need to reopen the closed period.

If the money turns up: recover the write-off

Choose Recover on the same charge. The debt goes back onto the tenant's balance, reminders resume, and the deduction is reversed in the current year.

Recovering does not record a payment. If the tenant actually paid, record that payment as normal after recovering. Keeping them separate is what stops Wealthru claiming money arrived in your bank when it did not.

Recovering is also how you undo a write-off you made by mistake. Nothing is ever deleted: the original write-off stays on record with who made it and when.

Who can do it

• If your account uses approvals, an operator's write-off waits in the approvals queue and nothing leaves your books until an approver signs it off. Until then the tenant still owes it.
• Only an owner or an approver can recover a write-off, the same rule that applies to voiding a charge.

What you cannot do

• You cannot write off a charge that is awaiting approval or has already been voided. There is no receivable behind it to write off.
• You cannot write off a charge that is already fully paid, or one already written off. Recover it first if the write-off was wrong.
• You cannot void a charge that is written off. Recover the write-off first, then void it.