Expense vs Liability

[Maf. King]

On Saturday 13 November 2010 06:44:02 Dennis Powless wrote:

>
> I guess I'm just confused.  When someone in the family goes to the
> doctor we get a charge/bill for an amount, say 100.00 USD.  I need to
> enter this into GC some place.  What account would it go under?
>
> Any ideas?

HI Dennis,

I am not an accountant, but I'd handle it as follows (for personal 
expenditure):

if I pay the whole bill straight away, I'd use a transfer from say checking to 
an expense account. 
If however, I was going to pay by 2 or more installments split over time, I'd 
put the expense into GC as a transfer to a liability account, then as I pay 
each installment there would be a transaction from checking to reduce that 
liability.

HTH,
Maf.