Using GnuCash for a web-based business?

[Omari Stephens]

Hi, all

I run a web-based photography business and am hoping to use GnuCash to 
keep track of things.  Note that I've only just started figuring this 
out, so I may ask questions that might have been answered by having used 
the program for longer.  That said, here are some problems I've bumped 
into, and some questions I have:

  - Why does gnucash force me to enter a payment/billing address when I 
set up a vendor/customer?  I get prints done at foo.com, let's say, and 
I have no idea where foo.com is, or what it's address might be.  I also 
have customers whom I don't interact with, personally; I have no way of 
knowing their address.

What I would like to do is just set "Company Name" to "foo.com" or "John 
Q. Customer" and be done with it.

  - In the same vein, in this day and age, it would seem natural to have 
an explicit "URL" entry in the Vendor information.  Many companies have 
different email addresses to contact, and will have a single "Contacts" 
webpage that lists the addresses.  Furthermore, if an email address 
doesn't seem to be working (suppose, the representative left the 
company, or is on leave), it's nice to have a canonical location to 
attempt to find more-up-to-date information.

  - In many cases, the details of a sale will be handled on my behalf by 
one of my vendors — I only find out after the sale has been completed. 
Even so, I would like to keep track of customers on my own, in case (for 
instance) a customer buys a print online and another print in person.

Since, in most cases, I will be paid up front, before the customer 
receives their print, is there a shortcut to the whole Invoice/Payment 
flow that would allow me to bypass most of the "this is an interactive 
process" machinery?  Note that there are still some sales where I 
_would_ need to use the Invoice/Payment flow, so it would still need to 
be available somehow.

I'll undoubtedly run into more questions as I go, but that's it for now. 
  TIA :o)

--xsdg
http://doppler-effect.net/