Handling newspaper/magazine vouchers

[Smardons]

I run a newsagents and am struggling to work out the best way to handle newspaper vouchers. Some customers have vouchers which entitle them to a free newspaper or money off. The item is scanned and the value of the voucher is entered at the till and the difference between value and voucher (if any) is taken. The vouchers are then returned to my newpaper wholesaler weekly.

I have set up a merchant account called “Voucher Sales” and allocate any voucher sales to it. My newspaper wholesaler then deducts the value of the vouchers from my invoice eg invoice £1200 - voucher value £100 = invoice total £1100. The invoice total exactly matches my bank statement which I can then tag. My problem is that my “Voucher Sales” account has a positive balance on it and no way to balance it the way I am currently doing it

Can you suggest an alternative method?

Thanks

[QFBeth]

Hi @Smardons,

I would have suggested doing it the way you are doing it already. When you process the invoice they give you. How are you dealing with the reduction for the vouchers? you could somehow manipulate it so that the voucher sales you have are used to ‘pay’ the invoice to then have the difference show as the bank transaction?

I’m not sure what impact this would have on your accounts though so it may be worth checking with an accountant

[FolkLondon]

Two possible approaches:

1. Create the purchase invoice for the gross amount, pay off the voucher value from the Voucher Sales account and the balance when tagging from the bank account.

2. Create a dummy purchase invoice for the value of the vouchers and clear that from the Voucher Sales account. (I do this on the sales side to clear GoCardless commissions at the end of the month)

[Smardons]

At the moment I simply record the invoice total as is which includes the voucher reduction so I can tag it from my bank account.

I think my best option is from the other reply.

Thank you

[Smardons]

Thank you, that would seem to be my best option