Accounting best practice question

[Eric Ladner]

For debit items coming in from other places (i.e. a reimbursement on a
credit card, cash from another person for something I bought for them
that shows up as a line item), what's the best way to reflect this in
the accounts?

As an example, I do computer maintenance on the side for the lady that
runs the daycare where my children are.  If a hard drive dies, I'll
buy a new one from NewEgg or something, then she pays me back my
expenses (I don't charge labor).  So, I've got a 40 dollar transaction
that I need to zero out (from my point of view, no money changed
hands, but I still need to record the transaction).  Where would the
balancing transaction come from?  I think in Quicken, there was a
generic "money in" that was an untracked source for cash.  The credit
is something that comes externally and I don't care about tracking the
credit...

what's the best way to accomplish this without setting up a bazillion
accounts that all show up under my account tree for money that I don't
want to track?

Hope that makes sense...

Thanks,

Eric Ladner