Record Expense Reports For Employees?

by Andy Nelms
(Dacula, Georgia)

I own a small real estate company (LLC) and I am also an employee. I record my business expenses that I pay for on a weekly expense report. I cannot always cut a check immediately because of lack of funds. So payment comes later.

When I record the expenses they need to be tracked as a "bill to a vendor" and set myself up as a vendor or is there some other method?

By the way, these expenses are not related to a customer or job. Thanks.

As you can tell I am new to Quickbooks and accounting.

Andy Nelms

Jennifer replies:

Hi Andy!

You *could* set yourself up as a vendor, and use the Enter Bills/Pay Bills feature. But then you are listed on two different lists in QB (Employee List and Vendor List). Plus these aren't really trade payables... so this method is not really correct, but it will work.

Rule of Thumb: having a single name/entity on two different lists in QuickBooks is never a good idea. It makes it difficult to track transactions for that name.

A different method is to set up an Other Current Liability account called, "Due to Employee." Enter a general journal entry debiting all of the expense accounts for your expenses, and crediting the "Due to Employee" account for the total of the expenses.

While making this entry, in the far right column enter the names of each of the vendors for the individual expenses, then enter your name in the row for the credit to "Due to Employee." Print this entry and staple it to your expense report.

When the business can afford to pay you, go to the Write Checks screen, make a check payable to yourself, and use the "Due to Employee" account in the lower half of the screen (Expenses tab - scroll up to find "Due to Employee"). This will lower the amount in the "Due to Employee" account.

Let me know if this makes sense by posting a comment below. Thanks for writing!