Suggestion for new help-page on spreading a one-off annual expense through the year

philip456

It would be great to have a help-page article detailing how to enter a one-off annual expense and then spread it through the year.

This is the process in Quickbooks

Maybe something similar to the article, How do I handle depreciation and amortization? but hopefully without using journal entries. Maybe it's possible with an initial bill & payment to an asset account and then expense transactions.

Samd

Hey @philip456! Also thank you for providing the workflow Quickbooks uses. From what it sounds like, they are using Journal Transactions as well, but have essentially automated the process on the back-end to simplify the process.

In Wave, you'd need to generate the Journal Transactions to accomplish the same thing (under Accounting > Transactions > More > Add Journal Transaction). If the values stay largely the same, you could duplicate the previous journal transaction each time a payment is made, and just adjust for todays date. The duplicate functionality should be selectable from the bottom of the righthand edit menu that appears when you click on a transaction.

This is great feedback though, and definitely something I can take to our Product Team!

Samd

For better instructions on the process, I've pulled this from our Fearless Accounting guide!

1. Wave records the value of each Bill as Expense at the Bill Date, balanced by AP, together with directly-entered Expenses paid from Cash / Bank / Credit accounts. We need to reduce that Expense, and replace it at a later date, when we the Expense will be consumed.
2. Add a new Asset account under Vendor Prepayments and Vendor Credits. Call it Prepaid Expense.
3. Figure out what proportion of any products or services you have purchased remains undelivered or unused as at the Year-end date, and create a Journal Transaction to debit Prepaid Expense; credit the relevant Expense accounts.