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

This gets time consuming when it's just small coupon amounts that I get from CVS that apply to a variety of purchases. The individual item's prices can be miniscule, and apportioning a discount that can range from $1- $8 (their Extra Bucks) to each such item takes more time than I want to give it. Isn't there a standard accounting method that I could use to record the items at their original prices, as the register receipt does, and put the entire coupon amount as an offset somewhere else?

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.

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?

On Oct 21, 12:07 pm, "Gil Faver" the IRS allows as a deduction for business.  That said, what I use is

No. The IRS requires the net item to be the deduction. How do know which is which? I'm a CPA. Otherwise you should know if its a schedule B or C.

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

So you are using an income account, not an expense account which ends up negative. I was playing with that, vaguely remembering something from my accounting class days. I must have done something wrong when entering the offset amount in the split of the transaction because I got some negatives and some positive numbers in that category. If that's the easy way to go, understanding that the category really isn't actual income in the cash sense, I'll pursue it and try to figure out what my mistakes were.

Thanks,

jo

There are several OPs. Which of us are you labelling as obsessive? Me, for wanting to track this at all? Be careful with judgements. You can't assess people's reasons from an internet post.

jo

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.

So would I if it was a tax deduction issue. If there is an occasional tax deductible item on the receipt (few ever are), I keep the receipt anyway and can get the NET. 99.5% of the time I just don't need or want to spend any time figuring out the percentage of the coupon discount that applies to each minute item on a receipt. That would be too nit picky even for me. jo