Cancelling a pre-paid sale in GnuCash

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Sat Mar 9 04:26:40 EST 2013


Op 08-03-13 21:01, Buddha Buck schreef:
> A Credit Note looks like it would be a good idea for cancelling the
> invoice/recording the refund, but (a) it's not available in the currently
> released version, and (b) it doesn't look like it, alone, would solve the
> recording of the return of money issue.
Credit note support will appear in GnuCash 2.6, which the developers are 
currently working towards releasing.

Unless I'm missing something I believe credit notes would solve your 
problem as a credit note is an exact mirror of a normal invoice. That 
means, you create a credit note, and then "pay" it. This payment 
reflects the money that you paid back to the customers via Paypal.

So per customer you would have
a. a payment you received from the customer for the course
b. an invoice you created for the customer (marked as paid by the above 
payment)
c. a credit note to cancel the invoice
d. the payment you make to the customer because the course was canceled 
(which marks the credit note as paid)

> I think I could get the effect I want if I could make a negative payment.
>   However, the "Process Payment" UI checks and verifies that the payment is
> positive.  There isn't a "Process Refund" UI, unfortunately.
>
> I suppose I could get the effect on the accounts I want by unposting the
> invoice, deleting the payment transaction from the A/R register, manually
> adding the payment transaction against a misc liability account with the
> date of the payment, and then adding the refund transaction with the date
> of the refund to counter the payment.  I don' t like that in part because
> it feels like I'm mucking about with history, and the books for a given day
> won't accurately reflect what we thought on that day, but if the system
> can't handle it otherwise, what can I do?
>
>
I'm afraid I don't see much alternative until 2.6 has been released.

Geert


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