Newbie few item questions

[Tuc at Beach House]

> Tuc at Beach House <tuc at tucs-beachin-obx-house.com> writes:
> 
> > 	1) I started entering information on a Business/Vendor/New Bill
> > and found I totally stuffed it up. I was able to delete the line items,
> > but how do I remove the invoice itself? Its unposted with no line items.
> 
> You can't.  Just re-use the invoice for your next invoice.
>
	Is this something thats planned for the future, or just a quirk
that will have to be lived with. 
>
> > 	2) When I went to go look at a payment I entered, it seemed to be
> > showing as a split for 19.20 and 19.20 making a $38.40 payment. However,
> > I'm fairly sure I put it in as 156.59 without any payment splits. Where /
> > what / how did this appear?
> 
> Payments are posted in FIFO order against the Invoice Owner (Customer
> or Vendor)..  So if you have multiple invoices posted for a particular
> customer, it will post a payament against the first invoice (in date
> order) first.  If you over-pay this invoice, gnucash will create
> Automatic Payment Forward transactions to "move" the extra money from
> one invoice to another.
>
	The problem is that I know when I entered it, I entered the first
ever bill for this vendor correctly, and the payment in full correctly. Then
I entered the second bill, and the second bill in full correctly. So where
this 19.20/38.40 issue comes from I don't know. From what you describe I
can't fix it either, since if I attempt to enter another bill in it will just
continue the cycle of pre-payments, etc. If I attempt to do so, it'll just
keep shifting things around. Right now when I do the Business/Bills Due
Reminder I have actually 2 reminders for 38.40 for this particular vendor,
but each Vendor Bill was posted, then paid. I do a search for these two
38.40, with nothing. If I search for 19.20 I see a split in and out
of Liabilities:AP for 19.20 on each side (Wash) and then on one payment a
Funds In of 19.20 and 137.39 to Liabilities:AP and 156.59 to Assets:Current:
Cash in Wallet. How do I find where this 2nd 38.40 thing is happening?
>
>
> > 	3) To resolve #2, I went into the Cash Account, found the line item
> > and just deleted it. I went back to the payments for bills, found the bill
> > and paid the bill in full. NOW I have 2 line items that show in my 
> > Accounts Payable as "Automatic Payment Forward" for 19.20, another for -19.20,
> > the original incorrect payment with the check number is showing as -19.20 and
> > there is an entry for $137.39. But there is nothing about the 156.59 that
> > I entered... What the? If I do a Vendor search, then show bills, the "paid"
> > column is not checked. When I go back to the Assets:Current Assets:Cash
> > in Wallet and look at the payment, it now shows it was split into 19.20,
> > 137.39 in my "Liabilities:Accts Payable". Why? I didn't split it when I
> > put it in. Infact I don't know how to split it when I enter it.
> 
> I suggest you remove the payment transactions and the Automatic
> Payment Forward transactions and then repost the payment.
>
	I delete the Auto Pay Forward I found, and the payment, and I
run the Business/Bills Due, and now it tells me that one bill is due 19.20
and the other 175.79!

	I go to Business/Vendors/Find Vendor and put in the company name
. I click the company name and press "Vendor's Bills". There are 2 bills
not marked paid. The first is the one I keep trying to pay properly, and the
other is the one that it complains about the 175.79. I click "Process Payment"
and it seems to autofill the Payment information with 19.20. I change the
date, I put the 156.59, I put my check number in NUM, I post to 
Liabilities:AP and Transfer from Assets:Current:Cash in Wallet (I know I
should be using Checking Account, but its how I want to do it for now..)
and click OK. There isn't a check next to the paid on my "Search for..." .
If I go to the Bill Reminder, that invoice now shows 19.20 due, and the other
one shows 19.20 too. If I try to find a transaction for 19.20, I can't.
This is my power bill, so I go to Expenses:Utilities:Electric and I see
my invoices there. I haven't figured out how to get it to tell me the payments
easily. So I go to the Transaction report for the month the first bill is in.
Cash In Wallet is right. Accts Payable is right. But it tells me I owe
19.20 in the Bill Reminder... HUH?
>
> I've
> never been able to reproduce the work-flow that causes a problem
> with these Payment Forward transactions, but some people have been
> able to get themselves into a broken situation... 
>
	I think I'm there. :)
> 
> Without being able to reproduce the situation I have no idea how it
> gets into this bogus state..  But..  Removing the payments and the
> automatic-forwards and repositing the payments seems to solve the
> problem.
>
	Then when I do a "Bills Due" shouldn't it not appear there?
And now why is something 2 invoices later showing differences? I just
want a report to tell me everything posting to a vendor, maybe I can
find out then.
> 
> > 	4) Is there a way to print a report that would be 
> >
> > VENDOR	
> >
> > Date	Reference	Type	Amount
> >
> > 	So I can see in one place all the bills and associated payments
> > for each vendor? 
> 
> Um, have you tried the Vendor Report?  Reports -> Business -> Vendor Report
>
	No, but I just did. I change the "From" and "To" to be 12/1/05
and 12/31/05 respectively, I select my account (The power company) and
when I apply I get "An error occurred while running the report".

	I'd like to get a complete report, by EVERY vendor.

	But if I change the report to be 1/1/05 to today, and run it, I
get 4 bills, 4 matching payments, a total due of 0.00, but a 
31-60 days receivable of 19.20 and a 91+ days of -19.20 .
> 
> > 	5) Speaking of reports, unfortunately I'm not able to program
> > in the report language... Is there anyone who's made an "addition pack"
> > of reports possibly?
> 
> All reports that have been created have been incorporated into GnuCash
> and shipped.  Is there a report you think you need that GnuCash doesn't
> already have?
>
	I wanted a report like the Reports/Business/Vendor but I wanted
all the split information of the accounts it was posted to also. I
was hoping I'd find where these 19.20s are coming from if my bills
and payments match exactly.
> 
> BTW: Learning scheme is fairly simple.  Any software engineer should
> be able to understand the syntax of Scheme in under a day..  Learning
> the rest should be little more than a week of study.
> 
> > 	Is there some procedure or practice I might not be following
> > properly? It seems to be modifying transactions as I put them in.
> 
> "It"?
>
	GnuCash.
>
> Not sure what kind of transactions are being modified...
>
	This whole 19.20.. I put the bill in for $X, I payed the bill for
$X. I put the next bill in for $Y, I paid it for $Y. I put the next in
as $Z, etc. Where this 19.20 stuff is coming from I don't know. 
>
> But
> yes, GnuCash is going to try to auto-balance stuff for you.  The
> business features in particular are going to migrate the payments
> to make sure you can pay multiple invoices with a single payment.
>
	I'd rather I be asked about it. But in this case it should have
never needed to do it since I put in the bill, and paid it, put the next
in, paid it. Its not like I put one bill in, then told it I paid a 
different one, then put that invoice in, and then tried to pay the first
one. I also have an issue that it might autobalance differently that
we do it. I had a recent time where I paid a vendor bill only 1/2, then
we got the next one and paid it in full. With the auto balance wouldn't
it have paid the rest of the previous bill and shorted this one? I
wanted to keep that 1/2 a bill open and aging because of an issue we
had with the vendor on the bill. If I went back to look at it it would
have probably told me I paid it with a check that I didn't. So I really
rather apply payments to what I want, not how it wants. I do want it to
tell me "Hey, you have $G available to you from overpaying another bill,
do you want to use it here" or "Hey, I have another invoice that needs
payment, do you want that one included or leave it out of it." I guess
I'm coming down to I don't want auto-balance. I want to tell it what
payment applies to what bills, and let me worry about shorts/overs.
> 
> In 1.8 you cannot pay an invoice directly (but you can in 1.9).
> 
	AH. :) Ok.

	Any idea when 1.9 will be in production ? I'd probably have to
compile it apart from FreeBSD ports, they have random freezes on
upgrading software.

			Thanks, Tuc