Quickbooks Recording Income to Expenses Account

Let me give an example. The church pays $2100 for campground rental fee upfront.

The members, once the camp is done, pays back the church for $2000. For a net total of -$100.

The way we have it setup in QB is we have an expenses account called "camp expenses" and all the payments received for camp are put in that expenses account.

Is it okay to do it this way? Or should we have a separate income account called "camp income"?

OR both ways are fine?

Personally, I like the way of doing the recordings this way and the reasons are because:

1. When we do a P&L report in Quickbook, it shows right away the true cost/loss to the church for camp.
2. We won't somehow accidentally consider that income towards next years budget if we ever decide not to do camp for a year.

While I like the way it's being done now, I want to double check if this was an acceptable accounting practice and/or be acceptable if the government ever needs to check our books.

NOTE: We are a small church, and the finance department is all volunteer without any accounting or financial background.

Comments for Quickbooks Recording Income to Expenses Account

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Jan 10, 2017
Camp Expenses
by: D Fry

The way you are recording it now is fine.

Entering all of the expenses in a separate account, and then offsetting that expense by posting payments made to that same account gives a true picture of the total cost for the church, and prevents the payments from possibly being recorded as contributions.

Good work! Keep doing it that way.

Jan 30, 2017
Quickbooks Recording Income to Expenses Account
by: Anonymous - Rochester, MN

I agree with the previous comment and use the same method.

I have made a small change to this method.

I made an account for the Camp Rental. Then made two sub-accounts of that account, Camp Rental Expense and Camp Rental Revenue. That way you can easily see how much the rental fee was, how much was received toward that fee and the cost to the Church showing up in the main account, Camp Rental.

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