Custom Transaction Report with Balance

Jason Dunham jwdunham at gmail.com
Fri Dec 11 15:54:24 EST 2009


On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Jason Dunham <jwdunham at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Hi Derek,
> >
> > I believe I am using the customer payment and invoice features correctly,
> but
> > on the customer report, I just get one line for the invoice total, so I
> also
> > have to print out the invoice. That's not a killer, but the invoice
> doesn't
> > add much value in my situation.  I'd rather just have all the invoice
> items
> > entered as regular transactions and generate a transaction report (just
> like a
> > bank statement does).  I suppose I could make separate invoices for each
> line
> > item, but that's a pain too.  It's also difficult to include credits and
> > refunds in the invoice, which is its own problem.
>
> The Customer report was designed to be a list of invoices and payments.
> I.e., it's a Statement of the Customer's Account (showing each
> "Transaction").  So you would, e.g., send out Invoices when they come
> up, and then you can send out the Customer Report monthly to show which
> invoices have been posted and which have been paid.
>
> So yes, it was specifically designed to "make you" send both Invoices
> AND Customer Report if you want both sets of information.
>
> In the original implementation there was ONLY the "accumulate splits"
> option.  The reports were written then.  Only later did the code get
> added to make the invoice posted transaction have 1 split per line-item,
> so you could then use a "transaction register report" to print the
> expanded transaction/invoice.
>
> I'm not sure what you mean by "separate invoices for each line item."
> Why would you want to do that?  That's exactly what an Invoice is for.
> But and invoice is NOT a Customer report.  There is no "balance" in an
> invoice; the invoice affects the balance of the customer/account.
>
>
OK, so here's my use case:  I am using GnuCash to manage a vacation house
shared by three families.  Each month or quarter, the co-owners need to pay
their share of the mortgage, utilities and taxes, and get credit for any
rent earned, or supplies purchased, or vendors paid.  The invoice isn't
really interesting to the co-owners, because it only shows half the story:
the line items for the charges.  Also, the money just keeps flowing, so
there isn't really any need to "pay the invoice", or to associate specific
payments with specific invoices. The owners just need to keep putting money
in or (occasionally) taking it out, and it needs to be easy to generate a
report telling them their balance. Something that looks a lot like a credit
card or bank statement would be perfect.

Then there is the Customer Report, but that only details the other half of
the story, the payments made, and if there are other account credits, I have
to enter them as "customer payments" or else they won't get picked up in
this report, and Accounts Receivable would no longer match the Customer
Report balance due. I have to say that this part is tedious and makes me
feel like this is the wrong approach. So maybe I should abandon the use of
invoices and customer reports and focus on creating a new report which acts
like a bank statement.

There are also equity accounts for the partners, but this is just 100%
operational funds, so the equity rarely changes.

As an example, I bought a ladder at the hardware store with the house
account, didn't even involve my personal funds. The ladder was too small, so
I took it back. Since it happened to be bought with a debit card, they gave
me cash back.  I figured I would just keep the cash and give the money back
to the house by increasing my accounts receivable, and then it would be
tallied on my account. But the only way I can find to do this is to generate
a new invoice "charging" myself for the cash received.

So GC is on the whole really terrific, and the free part is awesome too, so
I'm fine with using invoices if that's the only way to get this done, but I
hope I've explained how it seems tangential to what I'm using it for.   And
I do need to find a way to make it easy, because I want the other owners to
take turns at playing accountant and they will mock me if it's hopelessly
complex.

Now when we happen to rent the place out, then the invoice system will be
much more useful, and I think it does what I need right out of the box.

I'm sorry for boring you all with my situation, but otherwise I can't
explain how I am using the features. Again, any suggestions are appreciated.


> > The more serious need is the beginning and ending balances. I presume
> I'll
> > have to figure this out in scheme.
>
> gnc:get-account-balance-as-of-date (or something like that).
>
>
The first thing I'll try is a version of the Customer Report and a
Transaction Report with this added.


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