Bill splits don't post to expense acct with their own date

[Shane Litherland]

Thanks Derek, actually your long answer (i.e. regarding
meta-transactions) puts it really clearly. My 'workarounds' of separate
entries were then the better (correct) approach to achieve my outcome in
the first place it seems.

A rather left-field thought, but do you reckon there is more 'metadata'
currently associated with Invoices and Bills than the user/GNUcash can
make use of? As in, it's been designed, so far, to collect enough info
to do many more things but that depends on what ideas are implemented
along the way?
Just ask that because I'm a little familiar with the approach that it's
easier to collect lots of data at the start and decide later to use it,
than collect less at the start, only to decide later you want more
data... The former, if that's how this bit of GNUcash is, means new
ideas can often be implemented with less major changes?

regards,
shane.

 On Sat, 2012-02-04 at 21:13 -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The short answer: gnucash does not and will not do what you are
> "expecting".  Transactions only have one date associated with them and
> that date will be the Post Date.
> 
> The Long answer:   Invoices and Bills are Meta Transactions.  They exist
> outside the Chart of Accounts, so the normal rules don't apply.  Posting
> an Invoice or a Bill creates a single transaction, so there is only one
> date that can be on it.  The invoice (or Bill) has individual dates as
> meta-information, but they don't apply to the transaction (because a
> transaction only has one date!)-- the transaction date is when you
> received the bill or when you sent the invoice.  The fact that you did
> some work on tuesday and some on wednesday is irrelevant to the generated
> transaction.
> 
> Your mistake is treating a statement as a Bill.  If you need multiple
> dates then you need multiple transactions.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> -derek
> 
> On Sat, February 4, 2012 4:34 am, Shane Litherland wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > this has been hurting my head...
> > I was wondering if it was something to do with cash vs accruals
> > accounting methodology, but I'm not so sure. I think there's something
> > in GNUcash that isnt' doing what I think it should be doing. I'd
> > appreciate if someone can enlighten me...
> >
> > Scenario: A bill received that has dated expenses on it, such as a
> > quarterly bank statement with end-of-month fees itemised (and paid by
> > direct debit on the same day). Yes, its a 'statement' not an 'invoice'
> > but as it is the only paper record of those expenses, I enter it as a
> > 'bill' in GNUcash just like I do for anything with 'Invoice' printed on
> > the top. That aside, it demonstrates my problem well.
> >
> > Now, when I enter a bill like this, for each item I can put a date.
> > When I post the bill, I use the post date that the bill was issued,
> > which is usually a date later than all the items on it.
> >
> > I can tolerate that in A/P the entire amount is listed on the 'posting
> > date'.
> >
> > What is really giving me a headache though, is the individual items of
> > that bill are posted to their expense accounts with the same 'posting
> > date', NOT the date each item was given in the bill splits.
> >
> > So what the heck is the point of me painfully dating those splits if
> > they're not going to show up as an expense on that date?!??
> >
> > What makes it more weird/frustrating, is if I don't accumulate splits, I
> > still get multiple entries all on the 'posting date' in the expense
> > acct.
> >
> > So, if I got a bill on 20th August, and on the bill I itemised:
> > 30/04 bank fees april 1.50
> > 31/05 bank fees may   3.75
> > 31-07 bank fees july  2.25
> >
> > After I post that bill on 20th August, those three items are listed in
> > Expenses:Bank Fees on 20th August.
> >
> > Even if I make several partial payments of that bill, to match the dates
> > of each month (i.e. the day it's charged is the day it's paid by direct
> > debit) won't solve it. The payments from my cheque acct will show the
> > date of each item, but those payments are going into A/P to offset the
> > bill amount when 'posted date' comes around.
> >
> > Ponder a moment, if you will, the consequences of this situation when
> > the 'posting date' is in the next financial year (august) yet the bill
> > has items that were charged in the prior financial year (april, may) and
> > the new year (july)... they're posted in my expenses for 20th august.
> >
> > I have workarounds - I can do manual adjustments in the expense accts to
> > 'move' the expenses back to the 'proper' dates and tidy it up for the
> > different financial years. Or, as I previously did, I can enter three
> > separate bills with one item, each of them billed/paid/posted all on
> > their relevant date. But both of those approaches are messy and/or take
> > more time.
> >
> > What is the reasoning for GNUcash completely ignoring the dates for bill
> > splits when it comes to posting them to their expense accounts??
> > Or SHOULD GNUcash be using those dates but there's a bug in there
> > somewhere??
> >
> > more troubled than I should be,
> > shane.
> >
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