how to account for payments from others to my vendors

[paul morgan]

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 1:48 PM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Hi,
>
>
> Quoting paul morgan <queries0 at gmail.com>:
>
>  Hi,
>>
>> New to GnuCash and setting up a test account, derived from the very
>> helpful
>> "GNU_Cash_for_Business_users_Howto_Guide"...I have a question which is
>> maybe
>> more acctg than GCash, but, any help would be very much appreciated.
>>
>> Often our clients pay vendors' bills directly, and I'm trying to determine
>> how to represent that in GnuCash. Example: we have a project with total
>> contract amount of $50,000, and for that project our vendors' bills total
>> 40,000. Of that 40,000, our client might pay 15,000 directly, and it
>> wouldn't necessarily be known where payment would come from (our business
>> or
>> our client) at the time vendors' bills are posted.
>>
>> In short, as I understand it, the vendor's bill is a liability to our
>> company, but the funds which satisfy that liability come from another
>> source, and I would like to track those transactions. How can I account
>> for
>> those payments? I thought to establish an account Current Assets:Client
>> Direct Payment Funds with sub-accounts "client A", "client B" etc,
>> sub-accounts which could, I guess, be used to properly "Process Payment",
>> but how do funds get into that account?
>>
>
> Via a process payment of a Customer Invoice.
>
> In other words you would track it as if they paid you and you paid
> the vendor, even if the funds never actually reach your own accounts.


Thank you, I will  try.