How do I credit an outdated or erroneous invoice?

[Derek Atkins]

Alan Davidson <alan at dsv.su.se> writes:

> The short version of my question:
> - Shouldn't deselecting the active button on an invoice cause customer
> reports to ignore it?

No.  If it's been posted, then it wont get ignored by the reports
until it's been paid.

> The long version:
> I am pretty new to bookkeeping and gnucash and may be confusing
> things. What is more I am not sure if invoicing practices here (in
> Sweden)  are very different from elsewhere. But...
> More than occasionally I want to credit an invoice just to replace it
> with a new one. This is usually because the members of our
> organisation (read customers) do not pay in time, and I then create a
> reminder invoice that has a new  id  and an extra reminder fee added
> (Perhaps other countries add the fee to the original invoice but I
> have been told to create a new one. Anyway, I would have the same
> problem if I ever sent out an invoice in error and had to credit it
> because of that). Now, I could just credit the A/Receivable account by
> adding a transaction there to balance the outdated invoice, but that
> does not remove it from my customer report; not even if I deselect the
> 'active' button. Shouldn't it work like that? All the outdated
> invoices keep adding to my customer's debt and it is now (gnucash
> 1.8.7)

No, you do NOT want to create a new "invoice" with the new value
including the unpaid portion of the previous invoice.  What you want
to do is send them a copy of the Customer Report.

> Alternatively I could handle this by unposting the original invoice,
> but that is not good bookkeeping here - surely not anywhere.

Agreed.

> What I want to avoid doing is crediting the outdated invoice by
> pretending to pay it. If I do that it ends up on the customer report
> with a 'thank you' note. I aint gonna thank no one for making me send
> them reminders:-/

Why can't you just send them a copy of the customer report which will
clearly say:

        Invoice #1    $1000
        Payment        $500
        Invoice #2    $1000

        Total Due     $1500

...

> Comments and or advice is welcomed!
> 
> Alan Davidson

-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
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available