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xpj97341
January 22, 2025
Question

Real Estate Use - Booking closing costs that occurred outside our bank account

  • January 22, 2025
  • 1 reply
  • 0 views

Hey all,

 

I need to book some grouped closing costs that appear on my settlement statement. These transactions didn't occur from our bank account but rather from the Title company's escrow account. 

 

I've tried to manually create the fixed asset under Chart of Accounts and then make a general journal entry under the asset. The program asks me to enter both a matching debit and credit, resulting in a net zero account balance.

 

How do I enter the off-bank-account transaction into this fixed asset class to it will appear on the balance sheet?

    1 reply

    Rainflurry
    Rainflurry
    January 22, 2025

    @xpj97341 

     

    If the payments came from the title company's escrow account, then you should have an escrow asset account on your books from the payment(s) that funded the escrow account.  Do you have that?  If so, the journal entry (JE) is a debit to the fixed asset account and a credit to the escrow asset account.  If you don't have an escrow asset account, how was the escrow payment(s) recorded?  Whatever account was assigned to the payment that funded the escrow account, use that account as the credit entry on the JE.     

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    xpj97341Author
    January 22, 2025

    Please excuse my ignorance, I'm trying to learn as quickly as I can and I really need to get this right.

     

    I don't have an escrow account on my books, at least not one that I've used for any entries yet.

     

    We're a Real Estate Partnership LLC with 4 members. Each member individually wired their funds to the title company escrow. I think it's appropriate to mention that I do have Owners Equity accounts set up for each of the 4 partners but I've only used the OE accounts for excess funds contributed. Should each OE account be in strict balance with the dollar amount of funds contributed toward the closing on the master asset, the real estate? Is this even relevant to the conversation?

     

    Should I create Owner 1 Bank, Owner 2 Bank, etc to serve as the balancing transaction to the Escrow Account Asset?

     

    If I'm being honest I was hoping for a rather more simple way that I can post-hoc, create a closing cost asset.

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