Accounting best practice question

[Jeffrey Bridge]

I prefer to do this by treating the $40 as a loan to the person. I have 
an Asset account named "Accounts Receivable" (NOT type A/R, just generic 
Asset) with a named Asset account for each person under that. This shows 
me a quick total of how much people owe me.

Example transactions:

---
Liabilities:Credit Card -> credit $40
Assets:Accounts Receivable:Day Care Lady -> debit $40
---

then if I got paid back by check which I deposited at my bank:
---
Assets:Accounts Receivable:Day Care Lady -> credit $40
Assets:Checking Account -> debit $40
---

Jeff


On Fri, Feb 02, 2007 at 09:05:18AM -0600, Eric Ladner wrote:
> 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