On Tue, 30 May 2000 21:00:13 PDT, the world broke into rejoicing as
Bruce and Liz Chaplin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
>
> I am presently trying to set up my GnuCash chart of accounts, and
> trying to do a better job of organizing them than Quicken did ;-)
>
> My question...I travel occasionally for business purposes, and any
> expenses that I incur are reimbursed to me by the company. I may
> receive a travel advance, or alternatively I am reimbursed after the
> fact.
>
> What are "business travel advance" and business expense reimbursement"
> classified as? It is a form of "income" to me, in that money is
> deposited into my account. However, it is not _truly_ an income (I did
> not "earn" the money, not does it contribute to my net worth), and the
> expenses are not _true_ expenses (I did not spend any money overall).
> I am afraid that creating an income account (like Business Expense
> Reimbursement), and an expense account (like Business Expenses) will
> end up creating a false record of what my income/expenses actually
> are.
>
> What is the appropriate way of dealing with these forms of expenses?
> What accounts should be created to deal with them?
My "business expenses" are pretty few and far between, and so I take
the rather simple approach of applying reimbursements to reduce the
expense in the account in which I applied the expense.
For instance, if I buy computer supplies for office use, I'll expense
the item under "Computer" expenses. When I receive the reimbursement,
I'll treat this as a reversal of the expense.
If you wanted to track this sort of thing in greater detail, monitoring
month-to-month amounts that the company owes you, I'd suggest setting up
an asset account, "Receivable from Company," and then having the
"not-really-my-expenses" and the "not-really-my-incomes" go against that
Receivable account.
--> If you get an advance/reimbursement
DR CR
Cash $500
Receivable from Co $500
--> Spent money on dinner on the road
DR CR
Receivable from Co $40
Credit Card $40
The question here will be whether you normally owe money to the company
(e.g. - they generously pay you advances beforehand), and thus should
treat that "holding account" as a liability, or whether you normally
pay bills, and the company owes it to you, meaning that this "holding
account" is usually going to be an asset.
Hope this helps...
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] - <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
So long and thanks for all the fish.
--
Gnucash Developer's List
To unsubscribe send empty email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
