GNUcash - tutorial and concepts guide

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Thu Aug 5 05:41:19 EDT 2010


On Tuesday 3 August 2010, John Ralls wrote:
> On Aug 2, 2010, at 2:34 PM, Barry Seidenstat wrote:
> > Hi John,
> >
> > Yes I did read the readme.  I can't seem to find the show package
> > contents. However, I did find the online help. All I wanted to do today
> > was ender a customer, a project, a billing amount and print an invoice. 
> > Couldn't figure out how to get that done. This tool may be too complex
> > for me.
A prerequisite for using the Business features of GnuCash is that you have 
some business related accounts setup (Accounts Receivable/Accounts Payable).
The most easiest way to do this is to create a new file and add Business 
Accounts in addition to the Common Accounts.

To get to your invoice you could take these steps:
1. If you want GnuCash to deal with taxes properly you should first set up the 
proper tax tables for your country
* Select Business-Tax Table Editor
* Create a new tax table and set the proper tax amounts (for example, here in 
Belgium we have 21% VAT, so I have a tax table with one entry for 21%)
2. Customer
* Select Business->Customer->New Customer
* Enter the required fields
* Optionally select a tax table
* Hit ok
3. For your project, you can create a job
* Select Business->Customer->New Job
* Enter the information you need
* Note: in 2.2.x you have to use the "Select" button to enter a customer, the 
text field is read-only
* Hit ok
4. Now you can create your invoice
* Select Business->Customer->New Invoice
* Select a customer and job and set the other fields to your likings
* Hit OK
* The invoice entry window should appear now as a new tab in the main window
* Enter all the lines you wish to appear on your invoice in this window. The 
entry method is similar to the normal GnuCash register. Enter here for example 
your work, the items you sell to the customer and additional charges such as 
freight and insurance.
* Note that GnuCash will calculate the taxes and totals automatically. You 
find them at the bottom of the window.
5. When you are satisfied with the invoice entries, you have to post the 
invoice:
* Select Edit->Post Invoice
* Choose a post date and hit OK

That should be it. You can now print your invoice:
* You can use either
  * Reports->Business->Easy Invoice
  * Reports->Business->Fancy Invoice
  * Reports->Business->Printable Invoice
  I'm not exactly sure what the difference is. Just take the one you like best
* Choose one of the three reports above
* It will open with an empty window. Click on the options button (second 
button from the right in the toolbar) to configure your report.
* The most important information is the invoice number (use the Select button)
* Other than that, you can play a little with the layout of your invoice, by 
changing the other options.
* When finished, hit ok and the invoice will display onscreen. You can choose 
to print it from there.

Hope that helps.

Geert


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list