How do I deal with delayed payments/sales?

[Maf. King]

On Thu 30 August 12 01:11:38 mikedefieslife wrote:
> Ok that makes sense.
> 
> We'd probably just list the account as "Debtors" in the UK.
> 
> Now in GNU cash how do I move something from the Debtors account (i.e A/R)
> to bank?
> 
> If I change transfer from Sales, to bank, then obviously the amount is
> missing my sales. Do I have to create a while new transaction entry? Where
> do I create this new entry?
> 
> I enter a payment in the Debtors account (A/R) it reduces the balance there,
> but it also reduces the balance in my sales account, rather than adding to
> my bank account.
> 
> Despite there being two lines for each transaction in the Debtors account.
> GNU Cash won't let me edit the second line to show a payment made into the
> bank.
> 
> 

Hi,

IANAA, but I've always used A/R and A/P and my accountant hasn't said anything 
about preferred UK terminology.  I think that  AR is widley understood in the 
UK!

There are 2 ways to do this in GC.  

Firstly, read the docs about the business features - it handles A/R and 
accrual accounting in a fairly straightforward manner. The important thing is 
to only ever create invoices and payments using the provided dialogue boxes.  
manually adding things in GC's default AR account is asking for trouble, and 
it does try its best to stop you...

Or, you can do it completely manually.
1. when you create the invoice, it is a transfer between Income:Sales and 
Assets:AR.

2. When the payment is made, you transfer Assets:AR to Assets:Bank 

So, yes, there are 2 transactions.

If you create an invoice for £100, you get £100 in sales, £100 in Assets:AR 
and 0 in the bank.
When the invoice is paid, sales remains at 100, AR drops to 0 and the bank 
goes up by £100.

HTH,
Maf.