Unable to post bills/invoices

[Maf. King]

On Fri 4 January 13 05:55:42 lesatglsi wrote:
> The documentation states very clearly that the account under Liabilities
> must be named "A/Payable" and that the Expenses must be under AP Expenses
> "To use GnuCash’s integrated accounts payable system, you must first setup
> an account of the A/Payable type. The A/Payable account is usually a
> sub-account under Liabilities. It is within this account that the integrated
> A/P system places transactions."

Hi Les,

You only need one A/P account (under the liability tree).  My bad earlier 
today, you are correct, it should be of type A/Payable. Mine is named 
"Accounts Payable" and was probably set up by GC using the Business accounts 
template (many years ago)  I really don't know if the name of the account is 
important.

> 
> Which makes sense because that lets you see the AP by account. I'm assuming
> that when the bill is paid, the integrated accounts payable system moves the
> paid bills to the "real" Expense accounts?

No.  The point of "accrual" accounting is that the transactions happen on the 
date of the bill, not the date of payment. No movement into "real expense 
accounts" happens.  

In the GC system, you have to set up some vendors (who send you bills) - from 
your earlier post, I'd imagine that GasCompany and ElectricCompany might be 2 
to start with.  You also need some expense accounts, AFAIK there is nothing 
special about their names either, just make sure that they are type expense 
and everything is in one currency (for now) Possibly Expense:Utility:Gas, 
E:U:Water and E:U:Electric?

You create the bill in GC using the business -> vendor -> new Bill dialogue 
sequence.  There you put the expense splits as needed to the "real" expense 
accounts.  So the Gas bill gets sent to the E:U:Gas expense account, and 
Electric to E:U:Electric and so on. (Maybe the Gas and Electric come from the 
same vendor on the same bill - you can have splits just like in a non-ap 
transaction.)

Make sure to "post" the bill when you are done creating it. That enters it 
into the A/P account.

You should then see in the expense accounts the total spent on gas etc.  The 
balance of the A/P account tells you how much you currently owe in total, and 
the Payable Ageing report will show how much you owe to individual vendors.

When you actually pay the Gas bill, do a Business -> Vendor -> Process 
Payment, whereby you move the money out of your bank account and reduce the 
total liability payable to that vendor.

HTH,
Maf.
  
> 
> From the user guide:
> /Accounts Payable (or A/P) refers to products or services bought by your
> company for which payment has
> not yet been sent. This is represented on the balance sheet as a liability
> because you will have to pay for
> them. To use GnuCash’s integrated accounts payable system, you must first
> setup an account of the A/
> Payable type. The A/Payable account is usually a sub-account under
> Liabilities. It is within this account
> that the integrated A/P system places transactions.
> Basic A/P Account Hierarchy:
> -Assets
> -Bank
> -Liabilities
> -Accounts Payable
> -Expenses
> -AP Expenses
> You need to add additional asset accounts and real expense accounts to make
> this hierarchy useful. The
> important aspects of this hierarchy are that you need an expense account and
> an Accounts Payable account,
> with account type set to A/Payable.
> /
> 
>