Customer Summary Report

[Robert Smits]

On June 21, 2013 11:01:11 pm Robert L Brush III wrote:
> On Fri, 2013-06-21 at 16:24 +0000, Robert Smits wrote:
> > On June 17, 2013 01:13:13 am Robert L Brush III wrote:
> > > The "Customer Summary Report" is a customer profit report, it can help
> > > with job analysis by comparing the income and expenses for a specific
> > > customer.  Under the options for the report a tab labeled "Expense
> > > Accounts" will allow the selection of one or many expense accounts.
> > > Likewise the tab for "Income Accounts" will allow the selection of one
> > > or more income accounts.  The tab for "Display" will allow sorting by
> > > name, profit percentage, or amount of profit.  The "No Customer" is a
> > > warning that the report may be inaccurate, as the results are not all
> > > properly labeled.
> >
> > Thanks for the reply, but now I'm more confused than ever.
> >
> > If the report is titled Customer Summary Report, why is it dragging in
> > stuff that has nothing to do with customers? All I expect is to get a
> > list of all my customers what their status - paid up, owe money, etc.
>
> The report you are looking for is Accounts Receivable, that is the best
> list  of customers with their payment status.  The report you are
> looking at is only looking for differences between income and expenses,
> neither of which have to be paid, and in fact paying will not change the
> results of  the report.  When making this report, there were specific
> cases that were solved, but every effort was made to keep things neutral
> enough so it could be a general purpose tool and possibly used in  other
> ways in the future.

Accounts Receivable Aging? I think that's what you mean.
>
> I think it would  be  best  to  rename the customer summary report the
> customer  profit report, but I  don't know how involved that would
> be.

Yes, it would probably be less confusing - to me, anyway.

> > > Possible use scenarios:
> > >
> > > Tracking retail sales from different cities:
> > > Income:Princeton Showroom Sales
> > > Income:Beckley Showroom Sales
> > > Expense:Princeton COGS
> > > Expense:Beckley COGS
> > >
> > > Tracking rental properties:
> > > Income:Downtown
> > > Income:Northwestern
> > > Income:Park Ave
> > > Expense:Downtown
> > > Expense:Northwestern
> > > Expense:Park Ave
> > >
> > > Tracking types of business:
> > > Income:Labor
> > > Income:Materials
> > > Expense:Labor
> > > Expense:Cost of Goods Sold
> > >
> > > Tracking commission sales:
> > > Income:Robert Sales
> > > Income:Micah Sales
> > > Expense:Robert COGS
> > > Expense:Micah COGS
> > >
> > > So to get the most out of the report use the Income & Expense tabs to
> > > hone down the information displayed on the report.  By default it
> > > includes all income and expense accounts, GnuCash can't really predict
> > > the names and classification of income and expense accounts.  To be
> > > useful out of the box, any thing that happened income or expense wise
> > > shows up as "No Customer": Rent, Paychecks, Utilities, Bank Charges..
> > > everything.  Luckily it is easy to remove this information, if it is
> > > distracting.  It can also shed a light on how much information is being
> > > ignored, if the settings are overly selective the report might look
> > > good, but only be showing 10% of the picture.

I can see where this might be useful for some users, but not me.

> >
> > Well, rent, for example has no connection with a customer. I don't
> > understand why rent would show up in a customer summary.
>
> No particular expense was  hand picked, but all are included by default,
> and really they have to be selected on an individual basis, there  isn't
> a perfect  way to decide without knowing the way the accounts are set
> up.
>
> > > Why does the information look out of place by default:
> > >
> > > All invoices have an "Owner" in GnuCash speak, so any invoices made
> > > will show a customer and make it to the report.  When creating a "Bill"
> > > the "Default Chargeback Customer" is blank, and often gets underused. 
> > > To use the profit report this needs to be utilized, this is the tag
> > > that decides which line to attach the expense.  Without a customer the
> > > bill will belong to "No Customer", when entering income in a random
> > > register instead of creating an invoice, it  will also  belong to "No
> > > Customer", but that doesn't happen very often.
> >
> > What Bill are you talking about? In my system I have only three invoices
> > to date, each of them associated with a particular customer. What are you
> > calling a Bill? I don't think I've ever created one.
>
> It is a business feature to record invoices you receive from your
> vendors if you choose to track that sort of thing.

If you define a vendor as someone who sells on products that you make, then I don't have ANY vendors at all. I only get bills or invoices from suppliers who sell stuff to our organization.

>
> http://gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/bus-ap-bills1.html
>
> > > Inventory based businesses won't benefit as much because of the nature
> > > of the report.  Currently there isn't a way to avoid this.  Creating
> > > invoices for items out of inventory usually shows as 100% profit,
> > > hardly reality.  The best way to handle this is to use a different
> > > income account and exclude it from the report, if that won't
> > > over-complicate the entry of invoices.  Once you get on a good start
> > > the invoice line item auto-fill will help remember the accounts for
> > > inventory items.
> > >
> > > Good luck!
> >
> > Thanks, Bob. I appreciate your help.
>
> Glad to help :)
>
> > What I've been doing to implement invoices is creating a list of
> > customers, then creating an invoice for each sale, associated with a
> > particular customer, and posting it to accounts receivable. When I get
> > payment I process the payment and the money goes into the checking
> > account.
>
> Just in case, it  would be recommended to set up intermediate accounts,
> when a check is received it goes into  the bottom of the drawer, but
> gets labelled  as it is going into "Checks to deposit". If it is a
> credit  card  it goes into "Square Register".  This is sometime
> necessary to reflect the crazy realities.  Usually the customer will
> want credit shown on their  statement for the day they write the check,
> usually the bank will give credit on a specific day, but not usually the
> day the check was written.  The credit card company usually keeps some
> of the money, so it is easier to keep all their  dealings in one
> register, making it easier  to locate down the road.

Because we're dealing with almost zero retail sales I'm not sure I need to do this, but I can see advantages for situations with more retail sales.
>
> > What I had hoped the Customer Summary would do is show a list of
> > customers, their paid and outstanding invoices, and nothing else.
>
> I can't wait until you see the Customer Overview Page, it has helped
> with our work process, and should be easier to work with than the A/R
> report, I'm not sure  when it will be widely available..
>
> Thanks, Bob

 This sounds intriguing, Bob. I'm looking forward to it. 


-- 
Bob Smits <bob at rsmits.ca> 
"Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer."   - Erik Naggum