If I get a bill (e.g. for internet service), is that a debt I owe? If no, what are the practical difference between a bill and a debt?
From accounting perspective, an unpaid bill for internet services, according to the Accruals Concept, is recorded as a liability under 'Current Liabilities' section of the Balance Sheet. Also as an expense on the Income Statement.  So to answer your question it is both: a debt and an expense, however this is only the case at the end of the period. If you manage to pay it before the financial period ends this is simply an expense that is financed by cash or other liquid Asset on the Balance Sheet such as prepayment for example. For private persons you are generally given some time to pay the bill so it is technically a debt (Internet Provider would list you as a debtor on their accounts), but this is not something to worry about unless you are not considering to pay this bill. In which case your account may be sold as part of a factoring and you will then have a debt affecting your credit rating. A debt is created when the service is rendered or the goods are sold to you.  The bill is simply a way of recording the debt and alerting you to it.
While I'm not an accountant, this is how I do this for my personal   accounting: Note, if you don't want the expense to take effect right away meaning   it'll affect your Profits, then the transaction date here needs to be   something in the future, then when you hit that date and the bill is   still not paid, you just unpost the bill and repost again with a new   date . So you end up with something like the following:   4. Now you post the invoice to Liabilities:Accounts Payable:The Cable Company, the invoice due date should reflect what you had in the invoice. This is important as gnucash will warn you that your bill is due if you want to pay it every time it starts:  When you're ready to pay the bill, just find the bill and click pay invoice. If it's already paid and you imported transactions from your bank, find the transaction then right click and click assign as payment then choose your invoice. Note: I've being using this to also record cheques that are given to   people but not cashed yet. I hope that helps. If you ended at your second paragraph, no. It's simply a refund of your own money. Same as any time I get any cash back, whether due to a credit card reward program or price match.  But. Your 4th paragraph changes this. Yes, you owe tax, as it's clearly not your own money coming back. Even barter income is taxable.  Per the new comments appearing, this is not a case of bartering. I cited bartering as an understandable example of when there's no cash and yet, tax is owed. In this situation, value is received, and it counts as income similar to the barter situations.  Just because the value isn't in cash doesn't negate the tax due. I'd rhetorically ask how OP pays his rent/mortgage, utilities, cell phone bill, etc. The answer is simple, non-traditional income, as OP puts it, has a tax due. You aren't paying for your internet buddy. You are paying for a portion of the services that your internet provider charges you for. However you are not paying for the infrastructure, electricity, utilities, security, and all the other things that are required in order for that ISP to be able to bring internet to your house. Legal Tender means you have to accept that money as payment for a legal (as in not illegal) debt.   If I'm in country X, and we go to court over a dispute of a debt, the law in most places is that the court will insist the debt be paid in the local legal tender at a specific amount.   As others already said below - taxes, etc -those are debts.  Eating at a restaurant is a debt (you ate it already) Filling up with gas without paying first is a debt. Employees work for you build up debt.   But in any private transaction where there is no debt, people are free to do whatever they want (let's ignore discrimination laws and whatnot for this discussion, mmkay?).   You can come into my store and I can insist that today I'll only accept euros.  Or jelly beans.  Or I can choose to simply not do business with you.   We are two free people who are under no obligation to do business with each other, and if we choose to, how we choose to remunerate each other for that business is completely up to us.  (How I pay the sales tax on that transaction, though, well, thats' between me and the tax authorites, and will be in the local legal tender) No. A company cannot bill you for services you did not request nor receive. If they could, imagine how many people would just randomly get bills in their mail. Ignore them. They don't have a contract or agreement with you and can't do anything other than make noise. If they get aggressive or don't stop requesting money, hire an attorney and it will be taken care of. One thing I didn't see mentioned - my major bills are all electronic transfer, i.e. there is no check mailed. A bill due in 2 days can be set up now, and still paid the day after tomorrow. Try that with a check. There are smaller companies that are not done that way and a check mailed, but you state the due date not the mailing date. So the bank still has the obligation to get it there. This is how my particular bank works. seriously money is debt has to be the most ridiculous comparison i've ever heard. that statement implies commutativity and certainly i would never say debt is money. i could take on debt to get money, but the debt itself is a liability and not an asset.  your last paragraph about fiat money is correct, but i should say that with modern financial markets price discovery isn't some magic voodoo thing. Same thing as for any debt: bank sues you, you lose, you are in an even deeper hole because you now owe them for the cost of the court case, your credit rating goes into the toilet, you may even have trouble retaining/finding a job. Being stupid is always more expensive. "I disagree with the previous answer based upon your particular situation.   If the column states something like ""Amount Due to you"", and is a negative number, then you owe that amount. Much like the previous poster states that a Balance would be money you owe, and if it was negative then the school owes you the same can be said for the column in question. If the number was positive, the school would owe you that amount, if negative then you owe them.   Keep in mind you could always post a pic of the document blacking out personal information." Someone else might be able to provide more details - but generally yes, of course.  International corporations can pursue debt collection across borders - whether or not they do is a matter of convenience rather than law.  My understanding is that a company's ability to report on your credit report is dependent on their membership in Equifax, USA etc. - so while most of your credit is country by country, international companies or companies with any relationship in other countries can follow you cross-border if they find out your new address and report the debt w/ that address.  Since virtually every major company has some American affiliate, I wouldn't hold my breath that you can escape it indefinitely ESPECIALLY since you don't already have the debt, and have the power to actually pay for the service that you're using.  Also - this is an incredibly scummy thing to do, and no matter how you dress it up as a financial decision it's just theft. Would you leave the country without paying your landlord? Without paying for groceries or other physical goods? Why is stealing from a telecom company any different? Yes, if somebody puts you in a  multi trillion dollar deficit...yeah, it may take 60+ years to pay it off.   Lets say your spouse racked up a few million in bills....that you are responsible to pay pack...how long do you think the fault will lie?  Also, don't forget to add in lost opportunity costs of not being able to do anything else but pay back bills. "I think you're thinking that ""in debt"" doesn't just mean ""owes a debt"" but somehow means ""owes more debt in total than the assets"". That condition, owing money without offsetting assets, is ""having a negative net worth"". If you have a mortgage then you have a debt and you are in debt. You may have a positive net worth, if you have equity in the house and your car and such like, and have cash in the bank. You may have a negative net worth if you owe more than you own. But either way you are technically in debt. Knowing that, it's not surprising that 75% of Americans are in debt. It's surprising that 25% are not. They have no credit card, no car loan, no mortgage, no line of credit, no student loans. Is it because they've paid all that off? Or because they are deadly poor and own nothing and can't be lent anything? You can't just say it's bad to have debt. It's bad to have too much debt, to have a negative net worth, to be in the habit of borrowing to finance a lifestyle you can't actually afford, and so on. But it's perfectly normal to have a debt or two. That's how our system mostly works." If the hospital is run like hospitals in the US it can take a long time just to determine the bill. The hospital, Emergency room, ER doctors, surgeons, anesthesiologists, X-Ray department, pharmacy and laboratory are considered separate billing centers. It  can take a while to determine the charges for each section. Is there an insurance company involved? When there is one involved it can take weeks or months before the hospital determines what the individual owes. The co-pays, coverages, and limits can be very confusing. In my experience it can take a few months before the final amount is known. You may want to call the hospital to determine the status of the bills. You're lending the money to your business by paying for it directly.  The company accounts must reflect a credit (the amount you lend to it) and a debit (what it then puts that loan towards).   It's fairly normal for a small(ish) owner-driven company to reflect a large loan-account for the owners.  For example, if you have a room at home dedicated for the business it is impractical to pay rent directly via the company.  The rental agreement is probably in your name, you pay the rent, and you reconcile it with the company later. You could even charge your company (taxable) interest on this loan. When you draw down the loan from the company you reverse this, debit your loan account and credit the company (paying off the debt). As far as tracking that expenditure, simply handle those third-party invoices in the normal way and file them for reference. "There is not one right way. It depends on the level of detail that you need. One way would be: Create the following accounts: When you pay the phone bill: When you are paid with the reimbursement: That is, when you pay the phone bill, you must debit BOTH phone expense to record the expense, and also reimbursements due to record the fact that someone now owes you money. If it's useful you could add another layer of complexity: When you receive the bill you have a liability, and when you pay it you discharge that liability. Whether that's worth keeping track of depends. I never do for month-to-month bills. Afterthought: I see another poster says that your method is incorrect because a reimbursement is not salary. Technically true, though that problem could be fixed by renaming the account to something like ""income from employer"". The more serious problem I see is that you are reversing the phone expense when you are reimbursed. So at the end of the year you will show total phone expense as $0. This is clearly not correct -- you did have phone expenses, they were just reimbursed. You really are treating the expense account as an asset account -- ""phone expenses due to be reimbursed by employer""."