Unallowable vs. Personal Charges

Unallowable vs. Personal Charges

Account 553201 Versus Account 013109

Account 553201, Company Card Unallowable Expenses, and Account 013109, Company Card Personal Charges, are similar in that they both temporarily hold charges until they can be moved. However, these accounts each have a specific purpose and should not be used interchangeably.

Account 013109, Company Card Personal Charges, is an accounts receivable (AR) account and is used for personal employee charges placed on CU credit cards. Please make sure to check the personal charge box in Concur when allocating the expenses out. These are recorded to an AR account because they are not university expenses and must be paid back. 

Account 553201, Company Card Unallowable Expenses, is an expense account code and is used to record legitimate university expenses that have been paid in an incorrect manner. 

Consider the following examples:

Accounts

An employee accidentally uses the CU Procurement Card to pay for a personal meal while they are shopping.  

Since this expense was a personal expense, it should not be recorded to a university expense account code. Recording it to account 013109 on the expense report recognizes this amount as one that will be reimbursed by the employee. Once the employee reimburses the university for the personal expense, the cash receipt is recorded to account 013109 to clear out the amount originally recorded through the expense report.  

While at a conference in Uppsala, Sweden, the employee mistakenly uses the CU Procurement Card to pay for $500 in travel arrangements.  

The situation is different now because the employee is paying for travel expenses in connection with this conference and is therefore paying for legitimate CU expenses. However, the expense should have been paid with a travel card. On the Procurement Card expense report, this charge should be assigned to account 553201. Once the expense report is approved, the expense should be moved to a travel account code with the following journal entry: 

  1. Credit to 553201 – Company Card Unallowable Expense

  2. Debit to appropriate travel expenses:

    • 700100 – Employee Travel – In-State

    • 700200 – Employee Travel – Out-of-State

    • 700300 – Employee Travel – International

    • 702000 – 702099 – Non-Employee Travel In-State

    • 702100 – 702199 – Non-Employee Travel Out-of-State

    • 702200 – 702299 – Non-Employee Travel International

       In this case, it would be a Debit to 700300 – Employee Travel – International

Reconciliation

Both accounts should be reviewed when reconciling your SpeedTypes. All amounts recorded to both accounts 013109 and 553201 will need to be moved eventually. However, as account 013109 is an asset account, a balance can be left at year-end, which would represent a charge incurred late in the year that has not yet been reimbursed by the employee. Since account 553201 is an expense account code, all charges must be moved to other expense accounts before fiscal year end.