Categorize money reimbursed for purchase on behalf of others

Margaret Gilchrist

I sometimes make employee purchases from my company for friends, then they pay me back. How do I categorize this so it doesn't look like income? I don't make a profit on these transactions.

Jon

When I have reimbursement transactions like that I give them the same category as the initial expense so the two transactions effectively cancel each other out.

For example, let's say I'm meeting up with my brother & his family to spend the weekend at a campground. I make the reservations and it's $100 per site so that's a -$200 Travel transaction. When we get there he gives me $100 for his share, so that's a +$100 transaction in the Travel category leaving me with a net $100 Travel expense for my share.

Margaret Gilchrist

Thanks Jon, I think I understand what you mean, but problem is that paid using my Amex and the people reimbursed me through Zelle, which is connected to my checking account - so the payment and reimbursement can't be linked, or am I missing something? MGS

Jon

You're right, Quicken doesn't connect the two transactions. Sometimes I'll write something in the memo fields so each transaction has a reference to the other one if I need to keep track of that.

Chris_QPW

It doesn't matter what account the two transactions are in, just that the category is the same.  Then when running a spending report and looking at that category they will cancel out.

Margaret Gilchrist

ok, thanks! MGS

Chris_QPW

One suggestion I have is to use unique category names like John, Marry, ...
Given that they are paying you back you don't really have to categorize it as something like "Dining".
But if you want to do both you can instead use tags for the names.