Invoice post date issue

[Geert Janssens]

On maandag 12 september 2011, Axel Essbaum wrote:
> Hi Geert,
> 
> I'm fine with a preference setting.  I am in the same boat as Mike - having
> to change the post date every time, or else have my billing screwed up.
> 
> Yesterday I again sent an incorrect late payment notice to someone (whose
> Invoice has a Post date of June 6, and so a due date of July 6, and so is
> now 2 months overdue.  But I had actually Posted and emailed the Invoice
> on September 3, which the client pointed out with some irritation :-/ )
> 
That's surely annoying indeed.

> I'm curious how you use the Posting function if you Post on the opening
> date of the Invoice.  Do you calculate the payment due date based on the
> opening of the Invoice?
No, but I make my invoices outside of GnuCash, mainly because of layout 
constraints. For my accounting, I then usually enter the invoices at a later 
date in GnuCash in batch. So all the dates are in the past in my case. Having 
the post date depend on the opening date avoids having to enter multiple 
dates.

But while writing this I realize this is actually working around another issue 
I have with GnuCash. If I want to get this fixed, I shouldn't mess with the 
dates, but fix the invoice template.

There is another part though where I prefer the post date match the opened 
date or the last date entered: vendor bills. As far as I can tell a vendor 
bill is rarely entered on the bill's date (sending them by mail already 
creates a couple of days delay). Also for vendor bills an opening date doesn't 
really have a meaning (at least not as far as I can tell). So when entering 
bills, I really prefer to have the post date match the opening date.

So perhaps that would be the better compromise:
* customer invoices: post at the current date
* bills: post at the last date on the bill

And I think employee vouchers fall in the same use case as bills regarding 
preferred post date.

Geert