I had a customer who asked me this question, 'How to record a dividend in QuickBooks?’
This is an accounting question; it is regarding the method used in your accounting process.
I had seen user using these methods; which you may like to consider:
Dividend as an Other Expense account in Profit & Loss Report
Some users create a Dividend account (as an Other Expenses type of account) and a Provision for Dividend account (as an Other Current Liability type of account). Then, they passed a journal to debiting the Dividend account and crediting to the Provision for Dividend account.
Example:
Assume that the company is going to issue $400,000.00 as a dividend for the year. The double entry will be debiting the Dividend account $400,000.00 and crediting the Provision for Dividend account $400,000.00.
Some user may feel that presenting Dividend as a Profit & Loss account may not be right; they may prefer to deduct it from the Retained Earnings account.
How to record the dividend directly into Retained Earnings account?
