What's the best way to record this?

[Ryan Flegel]

On 3 January 2011 11:07, Colin Law <clanlaw at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On 3 January 2011 16:55, FireFly <fireflys_98 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> --- On Mon, 1/3/11, Ian X Waddington <iwaddox at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> To expand on this, what should you do
>>> with an expense that is refunded
>>> because you return something to the store.
>>>
>>> If I paid £50 for a new coat on my credit card against
>>> expenses clothing
>>> then a week later I returned the coat I would simply enter
>>> an identical
>>> transaction with the signs reversed - wouldn't I, how else
>>> should I do it?
>>>
>>> I see this as the same as for the short term loan
>>> question.
>>
>>
>> I'll agree and disagree, you can deal with them the same, however I presume when you purchase something from the store you don't intend to return it, so as such it's an expense, then when you return it, the expense goes away.
>>
>> Short term loans are never expenses, you would expect it to be returned, having said that I think I deal with them the same way, but this is my personal accounting and I'm hecka lazy.
>
> In addition, for the case in point, buying something for a friend, you
> might buy it on a credit card and get re-paid in cash.

Actually, here's the whole story and how I ended up recording it.

I needed to buy a Christmas gift on behalf of my dad for my mom. When
I went to purchase the gift I was with roommates and we did some
grocery shopping, too, so my roommate ended up paying for the gift.
Later on, my dad reimbursed me for the gift.

Here's how it went down:

Initial purchase - A:Current Assets:Loans:Roommate -> $100 ->
A:Current Assets:Loans:Other
 - the "Roommate" account already existed with a balance in my favour
and I created "Other" instead of "Dad", because I don't expect to lend
him money very often so I didn't think he deserved his own account

Reimbursement - A:Current Assets:Loans:Other -> $100 -> A:Current
Assets:Checking Account

However, after this thread I've decided to rename "Loans" to "Owed To Me".

Thanks for the help, everyone!

-- 
Ryan