[curryt]

I don't know why this one always throws me but when rent expires how is it listed for adjusting in the journal?

[morgaine300]

You debit the expense and credit the prepaid rent.

If it's paid up front, you still have something coming to you, something you have a claim on. (Use of the property.) So that makes it an asset. As the time goes by, you've used the property and therefore consumed that asset, making it turn into an expense. So it has to come out of the prepaid (cause it's no longer prepaid) and go into the expense to recognize it.

It is no different than prepaid insurance or supplies. They're all deferred expenses - recorded as assets and then expensed as consumed.