@molbrez Hi there! I have a similar situation and I was wondering if the solutions offered worked out for you. You marked the question as "solved" but I'm not sure I fully understand the solution(s) offered and was hoping you could add some insight.

Here are the details: we were granted $3,000 to cover heating costs.  Rather than send us a $3,000 check, the donor sends the check directly to our gas utility company and the utility company credits our account for the full amount of the grant. Until the credit is fully spent our gas bill reflects $0.00 "owed" each month. To keep it simple lets say our heating costs are $1,000/ mo, for three months we would receive an invoice with a $0 due from the utility, the grant credit balance on account with the utility company would decrease by $1,000 each month, and the credit would be fully applied after 3 months.

I need to report on how much it actually costs to heat the building on a monthly basis.  In the past, we would record an "in-kind" journal entry for the full amount of the "donation" (debit in-kind utility expense $3,000, credit to in-kind contributions $3,000) and simply file away the $0.00 gas invoices without recording them in QB. The two in-kind accounts (in-kind revenue and in-kind utility expense, reflected in the "other" section at the bottom of the P&L) zero each other out, so without actually recording the gas expense incurred, our P&L won't reflect the true cost of heating the building. 

What transaction(s) must we record so the actual heating costs incurred with the gas company are reflected as an expense on the P&L without creating an AP due to the gas company? And then how do we correctly record the in-kind donation received? 

If I follow the instructions offered by @katherinejoyceO (set up the donor as a customer, then enter the donation as a "sales receipt") I would need to select an account for the "deposit to" dropdown on the sales receipt (my choices are existing Cash, AR, and Other Current Asset accounts). Since the check was sent directly to the utility company, it doesn't make sense for me to choose any of these accounts. @JasroV suggested using a Clearing Account (bank) when recording the bill payment (which I would have to create since we don't currently use one); would I select the Clearing Account when creating the sales receipt? 

I'm still lost as to the next steps. I assume I would enter the utility bills for the full amount (lets say there are 3 x $1,000 bills) as I normally enter all bills, and then use the "pay bills" function and select the clearing account. But, where does the customer (donor) "sales receipt" come into play? I somehow would need to apply the payment made by the donor as a credit against the bill and I'm not sure these steps would accomplish this. Any further assistance would be greatly appreciated!