Easy advice for a new entrepreneur

"Trizi" wrote

You should have kept the actual receipt.

They'll only start questioning the purchases if they are way off-base for your type of business, or if they find other problems in an audit to give rise to a second look at your receipts.

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I have all original receipts, thankfully, but in my name. How do I get them over to the company? thanks !

Here's what I think is the way to do it: (All the items are truly being used in the business)

I'll prepare a statement of all the items I bought and then submit it as expenses for which the business can then write a cheque to me.

Can I go back to last April (2007) on the statement?

You will want to create an invoice or an expense report, not a statement. A statement is a list of all open invoices. A business should never pay its expenses from statements when the vendor submits invoices. Also, you are creating an expense for the company in 2008 and paying it in 2008, so it should be recorded for 2008.

You can do one of two things: make an expense report, and reimburse yourself with a company cheque or set up a bank account called "Due to Owner" to pay bills out of. Then, the same way you would write a cheque, all receipts for personal credit cards, cash out of pocket or debit purchases from your personal bank account go through there. You can either 1) make a journal entry to transfer the balance of the "due to owner" bank to an equity account called Owner Investment or an Equity account with your name on it or 2) write a cheque to yourself with the "due to owner" bank account as the credit side.

Stephanie Durham Business Outsource