Free Samples

[Wm]

Sat, 1 Nov 2014 06:46:27 <5454C813.5090809 at austin.rr.com>  Jay Ridgley 
<jridgley2 at austin.rr.com>

>On 11/01/2014 05:03 AM, Steven Davids wrote:
>> Can anyone please assist?  How do I handle a free sample I give to
>> customers of my small business?

are they free to you

OR

free to your customers and cost you something ?

>I am not an accountant, however, I would treat the cost of the item you 
>are providing as a marketing expense. Take the money from cash(asset) 
>and credit a marketing expense account.

That'll work if the samples are made at or around the time they are 
given away and have no intrinsic value.

however if 100 samples are made which cost Steven something and are 
given away over a period of time it is more like

reduce   cash (or similar liquid asset)
increase stock:samples (or similar not so liquid asset)

then as he gives each sample away it is recorded as an expense against 
stock:samples

but this is, as Jay suggests, an accounting question rather than a s/w q 
and I'm not seeing anything GnuCash can't easily do

other fun bits to consider are the valuation of the samples as an asset

should they be valued at cost ?
should time Steven spent making them be included in their value ?
should Steven apportion the fact that he is renting a garage to store 
his samples be a cost of the samples or not ?
etc.

and at the end of all that I've no idea if the tax man will view it all 
differently where you (the person reading this) lives

-- 
Wm...