How to categorize Amazon refunds/gift cards?

John Russo

As a prior user stated, "It is particularly confusing when you have returned an item and the credit is applied to your Amazon account. Then later purchases are "free" until the credit is used up and it is very difficult to properly track and categorize them. Any suggestions, such as creating a new category?

Tom Young

Sometimes Amazon refunds amounts to your credit card, sometimes Amazon refunds amounts to a gift card.  I have a manual Asset Account titled "Amazon Gift Cards (Refunds)" and use that Account for the latter situation.  So the accounting for the refund is:

Debit (increase) Amazon Gift Cards (Refunds)    $XXX
Credit (decrease) Category used for purchase    $XXX

Then subsequent purchases at Amazon draw on the Amazon Gift Cards (Refunds) Account until it zeros out.

volvogirl

And what do you do if someone gives you an Amazon gift card and it's not for a refund?  What is the other side?  Gifts Received?

Tom Young

@volvogirl

Yes, I do have a Gifts Received Category and if anyone ever gifted me an Amazon Gift Card that's exactly how I'd account for it.

Anderson Ferreira

@volvogirl I do exactly the same as @"Tom Young"

Anderson Ferreira

@John Russo Additionally, as it could happen with other merchants, one alternative then creating an account for each merchant, you can have just one (e.g Gift Cards) and use the Payee to differentiate/filter/reporting to each merchant

Aiden13

I constantly get confusing charge breakdowns from Amazon. Example: I purchase multiple items from quicken, quicken will then ship them out in say 4 different shipments but my credit card statement has 5 charges for this order. This happens at least 30% of the time with my orders. So i have to sit there and figure out what this extra charge is pulling from what part of my order, absolutely maddening. I have now resorted to a 1 item per order for all my amazon purchases.

UKR

Aiden13 said:

I constantly get confusing charge breakdowns from Amazon. Example: I purchase multiple items from quicken, quicken will then ship them out in say 4 different shipments but my credit card statement has 5 charges for this order. This happens at least 30% of the time with my orders. So i have to sit there and figure out what this extra charge is pulling from what part of my order, absolutely maddening. I have now resorted to a 1 item per order for all my amazon purchases.

Amazon splitting an order into multiple partial shipments can be a pain. In that case I always use an intermediate account (an offline Checking account) to record

1. the complete order, with Category Split details as needed
2. each of the partial shipments as transfer to the credit card account

See below for an example: