User Support Forum

is it ever appropriate to debit an income account rather than an expense. giving a refund on money where someone paid the wrong amount.

athomas wrote:is it ever appropriate to debit an income account rather than an expense. giving a refund on money where someone paid the wrong amount.

Paid the wrong amount??

The only time I suggest doing this is when the system it doing it as part of a reversal in Contributions. In this manner the program creates the proper transactions, and there's no need for any human intervention.

If you could be more specific about what you mean when you said 'paid the wrong amount' the answer will be more specific.

oerson paid money to church for an item and and told the wrong amount, we want to give a refund.

athomas wrote:oerson paid money to church for an item and and told the wrong amount, we want to give a refund.

How was this entered? Contributions? Accounts Receivable? Still need more information

individual wrote a check which was deposited for $40 for a one time item being sold. should have only paid $30, deposited debiting bank acct and crediting other income. i wanted to know if appropriate when returning $10 if it is appropriate to debit other income rather than an expense account since there is no expense

athomas wrote:individual wrote a check which was deposited for $40 for a one time item being sold. should have only paid $30, deposited debiting bank acct and crediting other income. i wanted to know if appropriate when returning $10 if it is appropriate to debit other income rather than an expense account since there is no expense

OK ... since you still haven't told me how you entered this amount, I'm going to have to assume you entered it using the Enter Transaction function of Funds Accounting, so there's no other module involved.

In this case, yes you can write a check CREDITing checking for $10, and DEBITing Income for $10.

This is not a normal occurrence, so this is why I was asking for more information.

not sure what u mean that i'm not telling how entered. nothing has been done except check deposit under fund accounting and enter transaction, and yes, there is no other module used. thanks

athomas wrote:not sure what u mean that i'm not telling how entered. nothing has been done except check deposit under fund accounting and enter transaction, and yes, there is no other module used. thanks

I had asked how the money was entered. Normally there are two ways to do it: either Contributions, or if its some type of sale, Accounts Receivable. Entering income by just entering a transaction in Funds Accounting does not give a full audit trail that shows, what the income was for and who it came from. Using those modules would have meant a different way to handle the refund.

Glad to hear you have it all straightened out.