Depositing Refunds and Rebates

How do I enter a deposit for a refund or rebate check that I received from a vendor?

Goldenseal accounting software is designed for tracking expenses. Usually they are positive amounts, but sometimes they are negative!

The way you handle refunds and rebates depends on when you get the rebate or refund.

Instant Rebates

If you get an immediate rebate right when you make a purchase, you can just subtract it from the purchase amount when you enter the Material Purchase for the item you bought.

If you want to show the rebate in the purchase record, enter a note in the Comments field, or use a Category or Item breakdown so you can show the full price, and then subtract the rebate amount.

NOTE-- If for some reason you are job costing the purchase and rebate to different accounts, then you'll need to enter two Material Purchase records-- one for the full purchase amount, and one for the rebate.

Rebate and Refund Checks

If you receive a refund, credit or rebate check from a supplier after you've made a purchase, you'll have a single (negative) expense record for the credit. If you have already received the payment, follow these steps:

1. Choose Material Purchases from the Costs menu.
2. Click the New button.
3. Enter the vendor into the Supplier field.
4. Enter a brief description of the rebate or return into the Brief Description field.
5. Enter the amount of the rebate into the Gross Price field.
6. Click on the Apply To popup field on the right, and choose Credit. Goldenseal will automatically convert the amount to a negative number.
7. Enter job cost info for the rebate. You can assign it to a specific customer or project, or assign it to an overhead account.
8. Enter Check into the Payment Method popup.
9. Hit the Enter key to save the record.
10. Goldenseal will post the credit, and automatically create a deposit for the amount.

HINTS-- If you get a refund from a subcontractor, follow the same steps, but choose Subcontractor Costs at step 1. If the credit is applied to a credit card, enter Credit Card at step 8.

If you know a rebate or credit is pending but have not yet received payment, you can follow the same steps as above, but enter Vendor Invoice in step 8. In that case, Goldenseal accounting software will not make an immediate deposit, but will instead subtract it from the accounts payable balance for that vendor.

If the vendor subtracts the credit from your next billing statement, it will be deducted automatically when you use the Pay Bills command to pay the vendor. If you receive a credit check instead, follow these steps to deposit it:

1. Choose Checking Transactions from the Bank menu, and choose an account from the submenu.
2. Click the New button.
3. Enter Deposit into the Type popup field at top center.
4. Enter Material into the Received From popup field.
5. Enter the supplier into the Account field.
6. Enter Material Refund into the Transaction Paid popup field.
7. Enter the purchase into the Reference field (you can click on the popup button to see a list of undeposited material refunds).

HINT-- If you deposit the check into a non-checking account, choose Savings Transactions, Loan Transactions or some other banking transaction at step 1, then follow the remaining steps.

Click here to return to expense accounting topics.

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