Credit Note Alternatives

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Fri Feb 17 12:26:36 EST 2012


Op vrijdag 17 februari 2012 08:54:05 schreef Keith Fetterman:
> I am considering using GnuCash's small business features for managing the
> finances of a small non-profit corporation.  It looks perfect, except for
> one important feature.  I need to be able to create credit memos, refund
> customers and handle bill credits to vendors.  I have reviewed the GnuCash
> documentation, Wiki and both the GnuCash users and dev mailing lists to
> find out how to accomplish this.  I don't see anything in the GnuCash
> application.  The closest thing I have found is Credit Note Wiki page:
> http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Credit_Notes
> 
> I am assuming this will handle credits for both customers (credit memos)
> and vendors (bill credits) from what I've read in the Wiki.
> 
> I don't see when Credit Notes will become available on either the Wiki page
> or on the road map for GnuCash.  Does anyone have an idea when this
> functionality might be available?  I fear that it may be a long time based
> on what I read in the GnuCash dev mailing list archives.  There was some
> talk of it being in the 2.6 release, but nothing definite.
> 
It will be in gnucash 2.6. The feature is mostly implemented already in the 
development branch. It still needs some polishing to be end-user ready though.

> I have extensively played with GnuCash and I really like it.  What are my
> alternatives for accomplishing credit notes for customers and vendors?  It
> looks like accounts receivables and payables have been around awhile so
> what are other users doing to get around this?
> 
I have heard several people treat a credit note as a payment. So if you 
receive a credit note, you can apply a payment for the given vendor/customer. 
This works nicely in you balances and gnucash will match this payment with any 
current or future outstanding invoices for the vendor/customer.

The part you won't have with this workaround is the document (invoice/bill). 
So you can't create a credit note and print it to send to your customer.

Another method of dealing with credit notes was explained to me by Robert 
Brush:
Currently I process credit memo's by creating a standard invoice, but using 
negative quantity fields, it won't save this way of course.  The last item on 
the invoice I put Refund in the description field and use a top level Asset 
account labeled "Refunds" then enter a value to cancel the preceding lines.  
The business logic won't allow you to save a negative invoice, but it will 
allow a zero balance save.  To apply the credit to their account, you receive 
a payment to the Refund account, making the refund account return to zero.  If 
you are actually refunding the money you can do a transfer from the checking 
account, or the cash account into the Refund account, solving the disappearing 
money and returning the Refund account to zero.  This allows the recording of 
negative income, negative sales tax, and applying funds.

Regards,
Geert


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