Credit Memos

[Geert Janssens]

Hi Kash,

The next major release of GnuCash (2.6) will have support for credit 
memos. You will be able to deal with invoices and credit memos in 
exactly the same way.

On 17-10-12 01:38, Kash wrote:
> I have a vendor who issues credit memos. These memos are later applied 
> to the vendor's invoices. The invoices are entered as bills in the 
> Gnucash.
>
> It seems like I should enter the credit memos as bills with a negative 
> total, but that is not allowed. They're not invoices, but could be 
> considered such, but I'd have to create two separate entries for the 
> same company, one as a vendor and one as a customer, which seems 
> wrong. I did not test whether I could pay a bill with an invoice, but 
> I'm betting not.
No, that would not be possible
>
> I could create an asset account called "credit memos" then pay bills 
> out of that account, but it seems like there should be a more 
> standardized method that allows the credit memos to appear on vendor 
> reports.
>
That's the workaround I use myself as well for the time being.

Another option is to enter a credit memo as a (pre-)payment directly for 
the given vendor. Payments are not explicitly tied to invoices. So when 
you receive a credit memo, you could make a payment to the vendor 
(Business->Vendor->Process Payment) for the amount of the credit note. 
Then when you get a new bill, the payment will automatically be 
substracted from the bill's total when you pay the bill.

> I've found mention on the web to unpost an invoice, then add a 
> transaction for the amount of the credit memo, then repost and pay, 
> but this method does not address how to record the credit memos when 
> they are generated, or how to get them to appear on vendor reports.
>
> Suggestions?

Until 2.6 is released, I can only suggest the workarounds I mention 
above. They all have their limitations, but at least they allow you to 
properly record the payment traffic.

Geert