How to account for reimbursements

To complete the steps in this article, log in to your account from a web browser at waveapps.com.

You’re busy, and maybe you have some extra hands helping you out. How do you record reimbursements in Wave if someone else makes a purchase for your business? Follow the process below and you’ll be tracking reimbursements in no time!

When someone else makes a purchase for your business on your behalf, (i.e., using their personal funds, and not your business’s credit card or other accounts), your business has technically received a short-term loan from that person. This makes the money you owe them in reimbursement a liability.

So how do you represent that? You want the accounting in Wave to match the reality of the situation, so you’ll need to create a liability account. The easiest way to do this and keep track of everything – considering you may need to reimburse more than one person over the course of your business’s life – is to create a credit card account under that person’s name. When you reimburse that person, you’ll create a transfer from your bank account to that account, representing the reimbursement. Let’s take a look at an example!

You need to reimburse Raj for some office supplies he picked up for you at Office Depot. You’ve never reimbursed him before, so you’ll need to create a liability account first.

Step 1

Go to Accounting > Chart of Accounts and click Add a New Account. Under the Account Type drop-down, select Credit Card, and name the account something that will help you identify it. In this case, let’s call it “Reimbursements - Raj.”

Why make the liability account a credit card? Remember that Raj buying something for your business is essentially him giving you a short term loan. Creating the “Reimbursements - Raj” account as a credit card ensures that the money you owe Raj is listed correctly as a current liability.

Step 2

Under Transactions, create an expense from Reimbursements - Raj to represent the initial transaction. Click Add Expense and enter the date of the purchase and a description. The category should be the relevant expense category – in this case, “Office Supplies,” and the payment account should be the loan account you’ve created for this purpose, “Reimbursements - Raj.”

Before you reimburse Raj and enter that in Wave in Step 3, you can see the money you owe him (or anyone else you need to reimburse) by going to Reports > Balance Sheet > Show Details.

Don’t forget to break out any applicable sales tax! If sales tax was applied to the initial purchase and you want to record that in Wave, enter the grand total amount when you’re entering the initial transaction, and then select Include Sales Tax and select the relevant tax. The tax amount will be calculated from the total – double check to make sure it matches the receipt.

Step 3

Now, when you’ve paid Raj what you owe him, you’ll want to create a transfer from your bank account to the loan account representing the reimbursement. On the Transactions page, click Add Expense, and enter a description line. Select the reimbursement date and the total amount reimbursed. Under category, select Transfer to Bank, Credit Card, or Loan and select the “Reimbursements - Raj” account you created for this purpose.

Click Save. Wave will automatically create a third transaction, showing the reimbursement (income) to the Reimbursement - Raj account.