Consider the situation when a severance process cuts a service due to non-payment. At some point, if the customer doesn't pay, you'll want to seize the deposit and apply it to the overdue debt. To implement this, the system simply stops the deposit SA when it stops the last SA in its deposit class (refer to
Finalizing Pending Stops for more information about stopping service agreements). Then, when the account is next billed, the standard deposit refund process will offset outstanding debt before it is refunded to a customer.
Refer to
Refunding Deposits for a complete description of how the system refunds a stopped deposit SA's balance to other service agreements in its deposit class.
Deposit class refund method is the key. It's important to stress that the only way the system will use a deposit to offset overdue debt is if the deposit's deposit class has a refund method that does this. If you've set up a deposit class' refund method to cut a check for the entire deposit amount, the system will not offset outstanding debt. Refer to
Deposit Class - Refund Method for more information.