@ChrisHOA Right on. Unfortunately, at present, this workflow would not be possible in Wave. It is not possible at present to tie a scanned receipt transaction to another expense. I'd recommend showing the movement of these funds as a series of transfers in order to have your paper trail accounted for!
I'm not an accountant. Is the proposed workflow not standard practice? Is this an oversight in the software or am I just a complete accounting illiterate?
Why not offer an account type called "Reimbursement" that is meant for reimbursements and make it possible to link to the receipt being reimbursed? I've dabbled in programming and am sure this is possible, though yes, programming costs money and considering this is a free part of Wave, I'm just grateful for all the bells and whistles already at our disposal! I wonder if more money is being paid answering everyone's related issues than it would cost to program the feature...
You're not wrong that this would be an ideal workflow for standard accounting practices. Our team is aware of the receipts uploading issue and we're hoping to see a "upload image" button to transactions soon. Thanks so much for your feedback and making this aware in our community!
We appreciate you making light of the fact that Wave is free and programming does cost money so moving quickly on some of these changes can take a bit. But I should mention we are looking at transforming our transactions page and reconsidering the receipts uploading function.
I manage accounts for a real estate landlord. I record rent receipts as "sales" in Wave. I want to add entries for some of the accounts for "electric or water bills" due to the landlord as they are payable to the landlord as reimbursement. What category should I use to record this?
Hi, I follow your steps above but when I run a "Balance Sheet" report, the details show an account called "Transfer Clearing" in "Other Current Assets" that shows a negative balance for the same amount as the reimbursement amount. How do we take care of this "negative" asset?
Hey there @PK2020 ! To clarify, when you recorded the reimbursement, did you create the appropriate reimbursement liability account on your chart of accounts page? Also, do you have the two expense and the transfer transactions recorded on your Accounting > Transactions page? If you haven't done this yet, make sure the transfer is recorded to generate the third transfer transaction. This transaction is necessary to zero out the reimbursement account.
I'm confused on if step 3 is going to cause my the expense to be counted twice due to the transaction that comes into wave from my bank feed. I paid my reimbursement with a check. When that transaction shows up in Wave on the transaction page from my bank feed how do I categorize that transaction? Do I still need to complete the steps above and also categorize the bank transaction that shows up when the check is cashed, or do I delete the bank transaction?
Hi @Marie615 , if you already have a bank imported transaction, you can just categorize that transaction as a transfer to the reimbursement account. I'm assuming you may have created this transaction on your own? But if you already have it in Wave, there's no need to create another one.
Thanks for the article. Before reading it, I already had created a couple of reimbursement accounts as "other short-term liability". I'm brand new and just getting Wave set up, but is there some reason I can't transfer money in Wave from the bank account to the accounts I already have, or is that only possible with other bank and credit card accounts?
This makes more sense than my initial attempts. One addition to the steps is that because there's often a delay in cashing checks, I include an outstanding checks account. The expense is paid by the reimbursement account, the reimbursement account is paid by writing a check (outstanding checks), and then that account is paid by the actual bank transaction when cashed. With 4 recent reimbursements, 2 paid and cashed, 1 paid not cashed, and 1 not paid everything is perfectly balanced!
You can create a transfer in Wave to move funds between any account that you have set up under Cash and Bank, Credit Cards, Money in Transit, or Loan and Line of Credit in your Chart of Accounts. Besides this, it's not currently possible to create transfers between other accounts I'm afraid.
As you've just started using Wave, I would recommend deleting those Short-term liability reimbursement accounts by first deleting any transactions in them, then going to your Chart of Accounts and clicking the pencil icon next to them, and selecting "Archive this account". Then you can start fresh by creating new reimbursement accounts under the Credit Card section
Is it possible to settle the reimbursement credit card account, outlined above, via payroll?
We have employees that are making purchases with their personal funds and submitting them for reimbursement. This article looks like a great way to account for those transactions with the level of detail we want. We've been including the reimbursements as part of payroll and I am curious as to the process for adopting the system here but having the funds moving and settled through payroll.
I like this setup but it seems to have created a difficult situation with reporting for tax expenses. If Raj has purchased with his own money occasional office supplies and you categorize them as office supplies then they are mixed in with business' purchases of all office supplies.
When you are listing expenses for tax deductions, you use the report for office supplies (which includes business' and Raj's purchases). Then you also list the expenses "reimbursements to employees" which has Raj's office supplies among others (he is an owner/employee and also put in cash). In this way, Raj's office supply purchases are being double counted for exemption.
I'm not sure how to get around this aside from manually subtracting Raj's purchases from either of those accounts before claiming deductions.
Comments
@ChrisHOA Right on. Unfortunately, at present, this workflow would not be possible in Wave. It is not possible at present to tie a scanned receipt transaction to another expense. I'd recommend showing the movement of these funds as a series of transfers in order to have your paper trail accounted for!
I'm not an accountant. Is the proposed workflow not standard practice? Is this an oversight in the software or am I just a complete accounting illiterate?
Why not offer an account type called "Reimbursement" that is meant for reimbursements and make it possible to link to the receipt being reimbursed? I've dabbled in programming and am sure this is possible, though yes, programming costs money and considering this is a free part of Wave, I'm just grateful for all the bells and whistles already at our disposal! I wonder if more money is being paid answering everyone's related issues than it would cost to program the feature...
Hey there @ChrisHOA
You're not wrong that this would be an ideal workflow for standard accounting practices. Our team is aware of the receipts uploading issue and we're hoping to see a "upload image" button to transactions soon. Thanks so much for your feedback and making this aware in our community!
Hey @Audra
We appreciate you making light of the fact that Wave is free and programming does cost money so moving quickly on some of these changes can take a bit. But I should mention we are looking at transforming our transactions page and reconsidering the receipts uploading function.
I manage accounts for a real estate landlord. I record rent receipts as "sales" in Wave. I want to add entries for some of the accounts for "electric or water bills" due to the landlord as they are payable to the landlord as reimbursement. What category should I use to record this?
Hey there @Waveme
I've merged your question into our "How to account for reimbursements" thread where you might find a bit more wisdom on how to record this in Wave.
Hi, I follow your steps above but when I run a "Balance Sheet" report, the details show an account called "Transfer Clearing" in "Other Current Assets" that shows a negative balance for the same amount as the reimbursement amount. How do we take care of this "negative" asset?
Thanks!
Hi, any updates on my question below? Thanks!
Hey there @PK2020 ! To clarify, when you recorded the reimbursement, did you create the appropriate reimbursement liability account on your chart of accounts page? Also, do you have the two expense and the transfer transactions recorded on your Accounting > Transactions page? If you haven't done this yet, make sure the transfer is recorded to generate the third transfer transaction. This transaction is necessary to zero out the reimbursement account.
I'm confused on if step 3 is going to cause my the expense to be counted twice due to the transaction that comes into wave from my bank feed. I paid my reimbursement with a check. When that transaction shows up in Wave on the transaction page from my bank feed how do I categorize that transaction? Do I still need to complete the steps above and also categorize the bank transaction that shows up when the check is cashed, or do I delete the bank transaction?
Hi @Marie615 , if you already have a bank imported transaction, you can just categorize that transaction as a transfer to the reimbursement account. I'm assuming you may have created this transaction on your own? But if you already have it in Wave, there's no need to create another one.
Let me know if you have any further questions.
Thanks for the article. Before reading it, I already had created a couple of reimbursement accounts as "other short-term liability". I'm brand new and just getting Wave set up, but is there some reason I can't transfer money in Wave from the bank account to the accounts I already have, or is that only possible with other bank and credit card accounts?
This makes more sense than my initial attempts. One addition to the steps is that because there's often a delay in cashing checks, I include an outstanding checks account. The expense is paid by the reimbursement account, the reimbursement account is paid by writing a check (outstanding checks), and then that account is paid by the actual bank transaction when cashed. With 4 recent reimbursements, 2 paid and cashed, 1 paid not cashed, and 1 not paid everything is perfectly balanced!
Hey @Shanearoonie !
You can create a transfer in Wave to move funds between any account that you have set up under Cash and Bank, Credit Cards, Money in Transit, or Loan and Line of Credit in your Chart of Accounts. Besides this, it's not currently possible to create transfers between other accounts I'm afraid.
As you've just started using Wave, I would recommend deleting those Short-term liability reimbursement accounts by first deleting any transactions in them, then going to your Chart of Accounts and clicking the pencil icon next to them, and selecting "Archive this account". Then you can start fresh by creating new reimbursement accounts under the Credit Card section
Yes, that's what I wound up doing. Thanks for the confirmation.
Is it possible to settle the reimbursement credit card account, outlined above, via payroll?
We have employees that are making purchases with their personal funds and submitting them for reimbursement. This article looks like a great way to account for those transactions with the level of detail we want. We've been including the reimbursements as part of payroll and I am curious as to the process for adopting the system here but having the funds moving and settled through payroll.
I like this setup but it seems to have created a difficult situation with reporting for tax expenses. If Raj has purchased with his own money occasional office supplies and you categorize them as office supplies then they are mixed in with business' purchases of all office supplies.
When you are listing expenses for tax deductions, you use the report for office supplies (which includes business' and Raj's purchases). Then you also list the expenses "reimbursements to employees" which has Raj's office supplies among others (he is an owner/employee and also put in cash). In this way, Raj's office supply purchases are being double counted for exemption.
I'm not sure how to get around this aside from manually subtracting Raj's purchases from either of those accounts before claiming deductions.