What business does not have to deal with prepaid expenses? Vendors like insurance companies, leasing/licensing companies, & service companies commonly bill in quarterly, semiannual, and annual increments using invoice dates prior to the periods covered. It is a pain to divide the amounts to the periods they apply which usually leads me to record the entire expense in the same period as the invoice.

The vendor bill creation screen could utilize a special "Prepaid" classification that requests the period start and length for the prepaid expense. The bill will then be debited to the designated "Prepaid" asset account in the period the invoice is dated. Behind the scenes, the total expense amount would be divided by the length entered and multiple journal entries would be created, using the start period entered, and posted to the applicable periods. In the Report section, a prepaid reconciliation report can be printed the shows the beginning balance of each expense, the amount expensed during the period requested, and the ending balance of each expense.

This would make my job a lot easier and allow me to post ALL of my prepaid expenses against the proper period regardless of length and amount.