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Bookkeeping Entries for Roofing Bid Received

Question:

Help! My bookkeeping knowledge is limited to a semester of accounting at a local community college in the mid 1970's.

We contracted with a local roofer to make repairs to the church's roof. We have his estimate of how much it will cost and he's started working on it. My question is how do I enter the estimate into our financial software, Church Windows.

I imagine I need to create some sort of liability to show that we're involved in the work. But how do I enter the expense - do I create an expense acct labeled 'roof repairs in progress'? And then when we get the final bill, do I move the liability to an actual accounts payable acct with 'roof repairs' expense?

Answer:

No entry is required at the time of receiving the estimate or prior to receiving the roofer's invoice. Once the invoice is received you may enter it as an Account Payable. Your accounting program, Church Windows Software (http://churchwindows.com/), will record it as a liability and ask you for the expense account of your choice. Typically that account will be a building maintenance account of some sort.

When you use your software to pay the invoice, the check writing feature of the program will automatically create a journal entry to decrease accounts payable and decrease your checking account balance.

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