Record Sales and Purchases by Credit Card Financial Accounting

Let’s look at an example where the customer paid cash and then changed their mind a few days later. They returned the item to you and received a full refund from you, including taxes. Finally, if your state or local governments impose a sales tax, then your entry will show an increase in your sales tax liability.

When making sales entries, a journal entry for the cost of goods sold is also made under the perpetual inventory system as opposed to a one-time entry for the cost of goods sold under the periodic inventory system. This article describes an optional approach to tracking credit card purchases and payments by making journal entries and using liability accounts to track credit card balances. The sales tax in your state is 6% for a total of $4.02 in sales tax. The customer has an account with your store and plans to buy this merchandise on credit. Here is the bookkeeping entry you would make, hopefully using your computer accounting software, to record the journal transaction.

How to Account for Credit Card Sales

For instance, if Home Depot needs 1,000 board feet of lumber from Boise Cascade, the purchasing agent creates a purchase order (PO) and sends it to the vendor (Boise Cascade, in this example). Home Depot’s receiving department (loading dock folk) gets the shipment free interior services invoice template and matches it to the packing slip, puts the inventory on the floor, and sends the packing slip up to accounts payable (AP). The AP clerk makes sure the packing slip matches the invoice and then processes the whole thing (often called a voucher) for payment.

Recording credit card expenses after receiving payment, as in the example above, is convenient because a compound journal entry is all that is needed. The matching principle requires that expenses be recognized during the same accounting period as the revenues they help to generate. Jamal’s Music Supply allows customers to pay with cash or a

credit card. The credit card company charges Jamal’s Music Supply a

3% fee, based on credit sales using its card. From the following

transactions, prepare journal entries for Jamal’s Music Supply.

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To create a journal entry in your general ledger or for a sale, take the following steps. Receivables arise from a variety of claims against customers and others, and are generally classified as current or noncurrent based on expectations about the amount of time it will take to collect them. The majority of receivables are classified as trade receivables, which arise from the sale of products or services to customers. Such trade receivables are carried in the Accounts Receivable account. Nontrade receivables arise from other transactions like advances to employees and utility company deposits.

You’ll need to use multiple accounts to show that you received money, your revenue increased, and your inventory value decreased because of the sale. The following practice questions test you on the proper way to record sales and fees for credit card transactions. Sales returns and allowances must be properly tracked by accounting using journal entries.

Credit Cards

It sells a package of gardening equipment to a customer

who pays on credit. The landscaping company will recognize revenue

immediately, given that they provided the customer with the

gardening equipment (product), even though the customer has not yet

paid cash for the product. If you have accounting software or a bookkeeper, you may not be making these entries yourself. But knowing how entries for sales transactions work helps you make sense of your general journal and understand how cash flows in and out of your business. For locations with sales taxes, you also need to record the sales tax that your customer paid so you know how much to pay the government later.

Companies may need to provide an estimation of projected gift

card revenue and usage during a period based on past experience or

industry standards. If

the company determines that a portion of all of the issued gift

cards will never be used, they may write this off to income. In

some states, if a gift card remains unused, in part or in full, the

unused portion of the card is transferred to the state government. It is considered unclaimed property for the customer, meaning that

the company cannot keep these funds as revenue because, in this

case, they have reverted to the state government.

Accounts Receivable Method

Rather than recording an estimate, and adjusting it later, this illustration is based on the simpler approach of not recording the charge until collection occurs. With the total sales of $5,000 in the example here, we can determine the credit card fee to be $150 ($5,000 x 3%) as of July 1. Unlike petty cash, which is usually a fairly small amount of money, credit card charges can add up quickly and get out of control if not carefully monitored. In the next section, we’ll talk about internal controls on credit cards. In most cases, you receive funds from a credit card purchase immediately.

If you do, that’s great news for the 80% of consumers who prefer playing with plastic. But, it comes with additional business responsibilities, such as recording credit card sales in your books. The accrual accounting method aligns with this

principle, and it records transactions related to revenue earnings

as they occur, not when cash is collected. The revenue recognition

principle may be updated periodically to reflect more current rules

for reporting. If your customer uses a credit card to buy the item, you’ll debit accounts receivable instead of cash since it’s income that you’re owed, but you haven’t been paid yet.

Accounting for Credit Card Sale when Money is Received Immediately

They extend a credit line to customers

purchasing vehicles in bulk. A customer bought 10 Jet Skis on

credit at a sales price of $100,000. Let’s say that the landscaping company also sells gardening

equipment.

• Because banks that issue credit cards to customers handle billing, collections, and related expenses, they usually charge companies between 2% and 5% of the sales price.
• Basically, this journal entry is a reversal of your first journal entry to empty your Accounts Receivable account of the previously recorded amount and add to your Cash account.
• For locations with sales taxes, you also need to record the sales tax that your customer paid so you know how much to pay the government later.
• Review the process for recording sales returns and allowances with examples.

A sales journal entry is a bookkeeping record of any sale made to a customer. You use accounting entries to show that your customer paid you money and your revenue increased. Prepare journal entries for the following credit card sales transactions (the company uses the perpetual inventory system). Many business-to-business (B2B) transactions are based on credit.