How to Reimburse Expenses in QuickBooks
During the course of business, an employee may have to purchase goods and services for the operation of the company using his personal funds. When this happens, you can use QuickBooks to record the reimbursement as an expense. The QuickBooks financial application allows you to record and track expenses, such as reimbursements to employees, so that you can effectively manage your business finances. Use the Write Checks utility in QuickBooks to record the reimbursement
How Do I Track Reimbursed Expenses in Quickbooks?
Reimbursable expenses are the costs that you incur in the course of running your business, such as travel or subsistence expenses. Many people pay these expenses out of their own pocket and then reclaim them from the company on a weekly or monthly basis. Reimbursed expenses represent a cost to the company and personal income to you when you claim them back. To keep your accounts in order, you should record and track all reimbursed expenses. QuickBooks business accounting software includes a tracking tool as part of its Time and Expenses feature that you can use to keep tabs on these expenses and assign them to each of the company’s expense accounts.
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Recording Reimbursable Expenses
When working for a client, you may incur expenses that are reimbursable – that is, the client pays you back for them as part of the next invoice.These expenses have a couple differences from the usual expenses:
For most purposes, they are actually expenses for your client, not your business
They don’t affect your income for tax purposes
There are two ways of recording these expenses in Kashoo.
The Right Way
Because the reimbursable expenses are basically a short-term loan from you to your client, you may want to show them this way on the Balance Sheet; this is probably the most correct way to record them in terms of getting appropriate reports.
Create a Reimbursable Expenses Account
Go to the Accounts page.
Use the Reimbursable Expense account when entering Expenses
When recording the reimbursable expenses paid, use this account instead of an expense type account (this increases the loan balance).
If you like, you can put the name of the client in the memo or description field so that you can search for it later if need be. Alternatively, you can set up a separate reimbursable expense account for each client, if you’re looking to track expenses on a per client basis.
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Use the Reimbursable Expenses account when creating Invoices
The result is that the reimbursable expenses show up on the Balance Sheet only between the time you incur the expense and when you invoice the client for it, which keeps the books squeaky clean.
Note: In order to keep your Reimbursable Expenses Receivable account in balance, you need to charge the customer the exact same amount as you paid. If you are adding an extra charge on top of the reimbursable expense, add this charge as another line item and use an income account (don’t use your Reimbursable Expense Receivable account).
The Easy Way
Another common method is to simply record the expenses as your expenses, and the reimbursement as income. When you file your taxes the income and expenses cancel out, so if you are primarily doing accounting for income tax purposes this is a perfectly reasonable method. This also preserves your expense breakdown by category, in case you want to see where you are spending your and your clients’ money.
1. Create a Reimbursed Expenses Income Account
Create an income account called Reimbursed Expenses.
2. Create new Expense Accounts for partly tax deductible expenses
Be sure to create a new expense account for any expense categories that are only partly tax deductible, like Meals and Entertainment; for example, create a fully tax deductible account called Meals and Entertainment – Reimbursable.
3. Record your reimbursable expenses
Record any reimbursable expenses using your usual expense accounts, using the fully tax deductible version where applicable.
Note: If you like, you can put the name of the client in the memo or description field so that you can search for it later if need be.
4. Use the Reimbursable Expenses account when creating Invoices
When you create the client’s invoice, add a line item for each reimbursable expense and use the Reimbursed Expenses income account.
Since the final result, for tax purposes, is the same between the right way and the easy way, you can choose the one that seems the best to you.
Note: If you are adding an extra charge on top of the reimbursable expense, unlike the right way, you do not need to add an extra line item for the charge. You can record all the income to the Reimbursable Expenses income account.
Reimbursed Mileage
When your client reimburses you for mileage, the situation is slightly different because the reimbursement doesn’t correspond with any particular expense you have already paid; it’s an abstraction for the ongoing expenses associated with owning and operating your vehicle. In this case, record the reimbursement as income.
1. Create a Reimbursed Mileage Income Account
Create a new income account Reimbursed Mileage.
2. Use the Reimbursed Mileage account when invoicing clients
Use this account when invoicing your client for mileage – the quantity is the number of miles or kilometers, and the price is the rate your client pays.
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