Rebate ... what does it mean ?

[Kevin T. Broderick]

On 21 Jun 2005, at 7:57 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:

> Quoting Bob Alexander <bob at ngi.it>:
>
>
>> I entered an expense my wife has done with her VISA card in the
>> Liabilities - Wife VISA account and charged it to the  
>> Expense:Personal
>> account. In the latter it appears in the "Rebate" column. What is the
>> meaning of this ?
>>
>> I suspect it has to do with the VISA still not having charged my bank
>> account ...
>>
>> Thank you,
>> Bob
>>
>
> Um, most likely it means that you mixed up Debits and Credits.


To expand on Derek's answer just a bit, an entry into an expense  
account is either an expense or a rebate with the "friendly" column  
names turned on.  A credit to an expense account means money is  
flowing *into* the account from another account (usually an asset  
account such as checking or a liability such as  a Visa card) and  
appears in the "Expense" column; when you buy a book and charge it to  
your Visa, you'd debit the Visa liability account (a "charge") and  
credit the "Expenses:Books" account (an expense).  If you then get a  
manufacturer's rebate on the book that arrives as a check (hey, they  
do 'em on everything else now), you'd most likely debit the expense  
account (a "rebate") and credit your assets:checks on hand account.

What you have most likely done, if your normal expense appears in the  
rebates column of the expense register, is mistakenly entered a  
credit against the Liabilities-Wife Visa account and a debit against  
Expense:Personal, indicating that money is flowing from the  
Expense:Personal account to the Liabilities:Wife Visa account.  It's  
rather easy to do if you get at all distracted while entering a  
transaction, and I've found this to be one of the better reasons to  
reconcile my gnucash records against paper statements each month.

Kevin Broderick / kbroderick at smcvt.edu