Hi, How to record a monthly expense (rent in this case) where the owner comes to collect it every two or three months?
You must first capture the bill from the Owner, read the guides:
Enter suppliers | Manager
Create purchase invoices | Manager
Set up and manage recurring purchase invoices | Manager
And then Record A payment against the Bill when you pay the owner.
Record a payment | Manager
Thanks but I’m not buying anything why should I record a purchase? I used a special account and journal entries to debt rent(expense) and credit(the special account) temporarily until the time of payment.
edit: typos
Purchase invoice is used to record bills from suppliers (landlords, vendors, consultants, etc).
Create the landlord (owner) as a supplier and use invoices to record the bills. The advantage is that you can generate supplier reports (e.g statements) for the landlord.
Alright I will try that thanks.
Yes, you are buying something. You are buying the use of the property. You just have not paid for it yet.
If landlord collects the rent every 2 or 3 months, and you don’t want to record it as a purchase via an invoice, you can use the journal entries as follows :
Month 1 (no payment done) :
(D) Cost Rent : 1.000
(C) Liability Rent to Pay : 1.000
Month 2 (again no payment done) :
(D) Cost Rent : 1.000
(C) Liability Rent to Pay : 1.000
Month 3 (payment of month 1 +2)
(D) Liability Rent to pay : 2.000
(C) Asset Bank/Cash 2.000
This way you have your rent recorded each month as cost, and payment recorded when it happens.
In month 3 you simply record again a rent cost against a rent to pay liability.
But much easier to record an internal purchase invoice with landlord as supplier and book this every month, then when you make the payments, you simply counterbook against the open invoices.
In both systems your rent cost will be recorded monthly, and will not depend on payment date.
You can not use a journal entry for Month 3 - but the payment transaction will do the same job 
Thanks all, I created a Supplier and used purchase invoices. However, I’m still not comfortable with having Rent( expense account) inside a Purchase invoice it’s technically correct but just doesn’t feel right.
Technically correct is what matters, not what you feel. After all, this is accounting, not socializing.
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There are only 2 ways to record a cost : either record it as a purchase from a supplier, based on a document (invoice, etc…) or as a journal entry posting. If you’re not comfortable using an internal invoice, then use journal entry.
- invoice
- payment
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