Book clsoing [was: Re: Addition of HBCI support, Maturity of 1.7-branch, next stable release time frame?

[Derek Atkins]

linas@linas.org (Linas Vepstas) writes:

> Derek,
> 
> Can you think about & tell me about how things like payment terms for 
> billing is handled? i.e things like 30/60/90 day due dates, etc?

Currently Transactions can have a "Due Date", which is stored as a kvp
entry.  Currently only A/R and A/P type accounts actually provide a
view into that kvp data.  It is also set from the "Post Invoice"
process: when you post the invoice you can set the due date.

Currently nothing handles the 'terms'.  The "Post Invoice" code
currently hard-codes the "default" due date to "today + 30 days."
This should get fixed and pull in the terms from the Invoice (which in
turn should get pulled from the Customer).

I don't recall offhand if the Payables report actually deals properly
with due dates or if it only uses the transaction post date.

> The point is that its relatively easy to add lots to the engine, as
> described in these emails.  But they onlyu provide a grouping, and don't
> store any other lot-specific data (such as billing terms, discount
> rates, etc. for ar/ap type interfaces, or lord-knows what funny business for
> inventory, or the accounting method used for depreciation.  We could
> store this stuff in kvp's ... )

Question: For A/R, would you have one lot per customer or one lot per
posted invoice?

> But I figure you'd have a quick answer.
> 
> In other words:  should we (you, I someone) implemnent 'minimal lots'
> in the engine, ASAP?

I think this would be very useful.  It would certainly help in terms
of partial payments etc.  But we'd still need to figure out how it
will work.

> --linas

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
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