Expenses and Losses are Usually Debited
Expenses normally have their account balances on the debit side (left side). A debit increases the balance in an expense account; a credit decreases the balance. Since expenses are usually increasing, think "debit" when expenses are incurred. (We credit expenses only to reduce them, adjust them, or to close the expense accounts.) Examples of expense accounts include Salaries Expense, Wages Expense, Rent Expense, Supplies Expense, and Interest Expense.
To illustrate an expense let's assume that on June 1 your company paid $800 to the landlord for the June rent. The debits and credits are shown in the following journal entry:
Account Name Debit Credit
Rent Expense 800
Cash 800
Since cash was paid out, the asset account Cash is credited and another account needs to be debited. Because the rent payment will be used up in the current period (the month of June) it is considered to be an expense, and Rent Expense is debited. If the payment was made on June 1 for a future month (for example, July) the debit would go to the asset account Prepaid Rent.
As a second example of an expense, let's assume that your hourly paid employees work the last week in the year but will not be paid until the first week of the next year. At the end of the year, the company makes an entry to record the amount the employees earned but have not been paid. Assuming the employees earned $1,900 during the last week of the year, the entry in general journal form is:
Account Name Debit Credit
Wages Expense 1,900
Wages Payable 1,900
As noted above, expenses are almost always debited, so we debit Wages Expense, increasing its account balance. Since your company did not yet pay its employees, the Cash account is not credited, instead, the credit is recorded in the liability account Wages Payable. A credit to a liability account increases its credit balance.