I thought mm was a little overly meticulous when I first saw his receivables line item in his networth reports. Now I'm totally onboard! I added it to Quicken on Friday to track things like outstanding rebates, insurance claims, cash rewards and earnings that are owed to me, but not yet accessible.
I'm not sure when all of it will trickle in, but I figure I have about $400 of receivables right now and I like being able to see that as a part (albeit pending) of my cash flow. I do not intend to include this when I calculate net worth though.
Can you flesh out the process you used for adding an A/R?
ReplyDeleteI kinda get what they're for (rebate tracking) if you're not a business, but more detail on theory and what to do would be appreciated.
I followed the link but couldn't find this info
Here's what I did, if anyone else has more to add please do!
ReplyDeleteI just added an account called "Receivables" and stuffed it in the cash flow section.
When I pay my chiropractor bill, I pay $40 but I will eventually get reimbursed $25, so I add a line item in receivables for that $25 and put it in the same category as the orig charge (healthcare) so that my spending reports show what my net cost is (I might change my mind about this part)
Rebates, etc...added as line items with a category that matches the original expense.
When I receive the money, rather than do a transfer i just delete it out of receivables. I also might change how i do this in the future.
My goal is to (at a glance) see what money i have coming to me in the future so I try not to put the dates of the line items in the future or it wont show up in the total.
Honestly I'm still playing with the system so it might change, this is how i started it :)
Thanks Caitlin!
ReplyDeleteWhat i always wonder about is "what does Quicken expect" whenever i explore a new avenue.
In the Mac Quicken there is a report under Business called "A/R by customer" and "A/P by Vendor" that i've never figured out how to make do anything.
It's in my todo to read up in the manual on these to see how they work, and i'm hoping your methods can be adopted to these reports since it makes the tracking function much easier.
(most i've always heard were Excel users doing rebate tracking)
Foob
Well i've explored this a bit (it's simpler on the mac since there isn't a "business" version of Quicken) and it seems ANY payee or payer just "become" A/R and A/P.
ReplyDeleteThe way i would set it up for A/R is an account as an asset that gets rebates and such transferred too. As the rebates come in, they get trasferred out to the savings/checkings/etc account the check is deposited in.
In a way it's kinda like the Rebates and Refunds account; it is always going to be "rolling" and never really balance out, but looking at it in the past should show a balance of inflow/outflow.
It's also kinda like a Cash account in that you're less balance focused and more transaction recordkeeping. I can make my cash account to the penny, but it's usually off $.40 or so (found money, lost money, can't remember if i accounted for that "backup" dollar i keep stashed in the wallet) and i do not care.
Gotta keep focused on the big dollars and not sweat the small stuff.
Foob
Foob, thanks for the update. I actually had such trouble using the Mac version (after 6 years of records on the Win one) and importing the data lost so much information that I run Win quicken 05 inside of virtual windows. I can't even tell you how slow it is...but it gives me what I need :)
ReplyDeleteThough I am intrigued by some of the independent attempts out there to compete with quicken on the mac...some of them look slick