Hello. I am making very heavy weather of recording different types of expense claims. I’ve had advice on QF before, and am acting on this:
“To recognise the expense you should ideally raise a journal which would debit the relevant expense code (e,g, travel expenses for mileage) in the P&L and credit the director’s loan account.”
There’s a nominal code ‘Travelling’ which is 7440 - would this be appropriate?
I have no background in accounting and find journals a bit hard to get a handle on. 99% of what I do is recording sales and purchases we’ve made and that doesn’t need a journal (does it?) so I’m pretty vague about when it’s appropriate to raise one. I’ve seen other advice recommending creating a supplier called ‘mileage’, creating a payment record to them and paying it from the DL account or current account, depending on how the expense claim is processed. I believe I pay it from the DLA when the owings stack up there, and from the current account when it’s actually paid out to the claimant’s bank account.
There are two directors of this company: me and one other. My expenses claims are paid straight back out to me, but the other director allows them to stack up in his DL account ther than draw the money from the company. We’re in that plough-back-every-penny-you-can-into-the-company stage. If I create a payment record to be paid from the DL account I know I select the appropriate DLA, but what is the payment method for this entirely notional transaction? Bank transfer?
And in the end my question remains: is this best handled as a purchase record or a journal? And is that different depending on whether I’m paying straight out to a claimant’s current account or to a DLA?
Thank you. You’ll be delighted to hear we’re starting with a QF-orientated accountant from May so he’ll be the lucky recipient of my noddy questions!