Resistering a single deposit over several months

Perihelion

It says a lot that I don't really know how to even phrase the question, but I'm using Quicken for Mac as treasurer of a small condo association. Most of the members send the condo fee each month; I enter it and it also shows up in the Budget sheet. BUT some people pay 3, 6, or 12 months in a single payment. DO I need to make that appear in the budget as individual payments for each month, or is showing the total enough?

Thanks!

jacobs

I think it's really a matter of what degree of tracking you want and what you want your reports to reflect. If the goal is to have the right amount of money by the end of the year, then you're probably okay just entering the deposits as they come in. But if you want to match the income with the proper month, then you might want to split it up.

How can you split the income over 3, 6, or 12 months if someone sends a check for that amount? Well, those checks are prepayments of association fees, so you'd create an account in Quicken to track prepayments, and to monthly pull some of the money out of prepayments into fee revenue. Here's what that could look like…

Create a Liability account called Prepaid Fees. When you get a check covering multiple months, enter the deposit as a Transfer to the Prepaid Fees account. Now the liability account will have a negative balance. Once a month, you could enter a transaction (or multiple transactions -- more on that in a second) in the Prepaid Fees liability account to fee income. For example, let's say you get  a check for $1,200 which is to cover three monthly dues of $400 each. Here's how that could look in the liability account after one month:


The initial deposit in the checking account was a Transfer to this Liability account, creating a $1,200 liability. Then the next transaction takes one month of the prepayment and counts it as income, reducing the liability account to $800. 

I don't know how you plan to track individual members or units of the association; you could do it with Tags or in the Memo field. (Tags would let you create a report by member/unit to see who has paid and who hasn't.) Recognizing the monthly revenue out of the prepaid liability could be done in one transaction for all the prepayments for the month, or could be done as individual transactions for each member/unit if that would help keep things clearer. 

Write back if I lost you somewhere in there or you need additional help. 

Perihelion

You didn't lose me at all - and the answer works well! Thanks!!