Accounting for coupons- Q 2007

I use Class/Tags for this. For example,

Clothing/Shoes $50.00 Clothing/Shoes Coupon $-15.00 Transaction Amount $35.00

If I have more than one category, I would need to split the Coupon (Discount) between them, for example:

Clothing/Shoes $25.00 Personal Care $25.00 Clothing/Shoes Coupon $-7.50 Personal Care Coupon $-7.50 Transaction Amount $35.00

Oilcan

-----Original Message----- From: jo [mailto: snipped-for-privacy@verizon.net] Posted At: Monday, October 20, 2008 11:33 AM Posted To: alt.comp.software.financial.quicken Conversation: Accounting for coupons- Q 2007 Subject: Accounting for coupons- Q 2007

I'd like to track how much money I save using coupons. Logically it is an offset to the expense, but frequently I use a coupon that spans several items because it a store coupon, rather than an item coupon, so I can't just reduce a single item's cost.

I'd like to put the items in at their regular cost and enter the coupon amount in a separate category, but I can't figure out how to do it (I think I've had best success entering a negative amount in the split of the transaction). Is this the right/best way to handle it? I should end up with a negative total in my personal "P & L" report expense section, which looks a little odd, but I don't know any other way to do this.

Any ideas?

jo

Standard accounting is to record the cost net of discount, that's what the IRS allows as a deduction for business. That said, what I use is an income account "Discounts & Coupons" where I record the coupon amount and the pre-discount cost gets recorded as the expense. I just make sure that I don't do that with a tac deduction.

how do you make sure you don't do that with a tax deduction? do you not use "coupon accounting" with tax items?

Exactly! I think that the OP is a wee bit obsessive.

Hi jo,

I think you like to / want to use the Split Transaction Method on your Transactions.

Example:

Whatever Category you create for Example Food

Then type in the Memo of what you purchase and then the total price for that item.

Then on the next line, you might like create a new Category under Other Inc.:Coupons. Fill in the Memo and when entering the price, you want to do the minus first, for it to read: -0.79 as an example. This way, while the Coupon was saving you for example $1.00, you don't want to put down as 1.00 because it will add it to the total price. It must be a negative amount, even though a different Category from the other Category, because you are entering a Transaction like from the Cash Register Receipt.

You might like to create a overall Coupons, Inc. Category then under that Category put Food, Household Products as an example.

This is if you want to see what Categories you are saving in.

So be it. Personally, I would use the cost of the item NET of any form of discount.