Posting and Paying Invoices: What goes where?

[Derek Atkins]

Right, this is already supported outside the transaction ledger
interface (indeed, it's available from the main page, currently under
the Extensions menu).  Business X has a number of ways of searching
for the lost invoice they sent you.  One way is:

        Customer -> Find Invoice

This would bring up the invoice search dialog, and from there they can
search on just about anything.  The customer's PO number (aka the
Billing ID) is one of the searchable items.

Another method is:

        Customer -> Find Customer

This would bring up the customer search dialog.  There they can find
_you_ (based on a number of search criteria) and then they can click
on "view invoices" which will bring up a search of your invoices, and
then they can find the one in question based on the same search topics
as above.

As I said, my question is about what information to put in the A/R
Transaction ledger, not what information is in the invoice.  All the
information is there -- the question is what information to duplicate?

-derek

"Michael T. Garrison Stuber" <garrisonstuber@bellsouth.net> writes:

> Do _I_ need to see it?  No.  I use GnuCash for home finances and
> investments.  But, work with me here . . .
> 
> If I am trying to do some investigation of a transaction that has run
> amuck, and I call up business X (which uses GnuCash) and I say to
> business X hey, "I've got an issue with this invoice you sent me."
> Under normal circumstances they'll say "what's the invoice number."
> But let's say one of two things have occurred either (a), I'm a bozo
> and I lost the invoice I'm complaining about, or (b) something has run
> amuck with the system (something was misentered, the ink on the
> invoice was ruined, I've got a bad photocopy, whatever).  In this case
> I want to be able to reference thing not by business X's invoice
> number, but by my PO number.  (This can be especially true if I'm
> looking at my computer system where I have my purchase order, but not
> X's invoice).   So I tell business X', "my purchase order was 123".
> Business X needs to be able to quickly find the invoice in question,
> using that P.O. number.  If there is a facility to do that somewhere,
> great, don't worry about it adding it to the ledger-- but personally,
> when I want to find something I don't usually run a report or use find
> transactions, I just change the sort order in the register and scroll
> to what I'm looking for.
> 
> The upshot of all this is as a client of business X, I'm going to be
> really pissed if they say "we have to have our invoice number, your
> purchase order number is meaningless."  (I speak from experience on
> this, I've had companies tell me things like this, and I wasn't
> happy.)  I want to make sure that GnuCash isn't one of the systems
> that users have to work around, rather than having it work for them.
> I see the PO number as an equally valid (and very useful) way of
> referencing an invoice, especially when there is an order was filled
> incorrectly and needs investigation.  I would hope that both would be
> clearly visible throughout the system.  But, like I said above, if
> there is a more appropriate place for this where it is still easily
> accessible, I'm not in favor of cluttering things either.

-- 
       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
       warlord@MIT.EDU                        PGP key available