Difficulty in importing invoices

[Buddha Buck]

On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 7:07 AM, Wm <wm+gnc at tarrcity.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Which is the right amount?  Why do you need the discount to be recognised
> if it is presumed?
>
>
> Does everyone get the same discount?  i.e. this is faux accounting of the
> discount?
>

Not everyone gets the same discount.

The structure works like this:  We have three membership levels, with dues
of $20, $35, and $75 per month. We also offer discounts to students (25%)
and family members (various amounts, depending on size of family). In the
example I posted, Mr. Example would be a member at the highest tier
($75/month), but a student (25% discount), so his actual monthly obligation
is $56.25. I do not want to send him an invoice that says he owes $75, nor
do I want the customer aging reports to say he is behind by $75.

I can see 3 ways to create the invoice:

1) Have a single line-item for $75 unit cost with a 25% discount, subtotal
$56.25
2) Have two line items, both crediting the Income account, one with unit
cost $75 for the membership, one with unit cost -$18.75 for the discount,
so the invoice total is $56.25
3) Have a single line-item for $56.25, subtotal $56.25

I think any of those options would reflect the bottom-line reality (Mr.
Example owes $56.25, and we have recognized $56.25 net income), but the
last option hides the fact that the dues have a discount applied.

Going with option 3 would suggest that, for accounting purposes, we would
have not 3 membership levels and 4 discount levels (ranging from no
discount to 62.5% discount) we would effectively have 12 membership levels
(including such membership levels as "Student Family Standard Membership"
at $13.13/month ($35 for standard membership, 50% discount for family
membership, and a further 25% discount for being a student). But the
discounts don't change the privileges of membership (a standard member who
is a student has the same rights as a standard member who isn't), so for
everything except billing and payment, there are only 3 levels.

While I am currently sending a separate invoice to each member, I could see
sending a single invoice to a family with multiple members, in which case
there would be multiple line items, one for each member, and the first line
would get no discount while the subsequent lines would get a discount,
possibly of varying amounts.


>  Am I missing something in how this is supposed to work, or is this a real
>> bug that should be reported to the bug tracker?
>>
>
> Don't think you should yell bug yet as I'm not sure how far you've got
> with the existing import stuff and thoughts about it.
>

Hence my posting to the list asking if I've missed something.

I've read the docs, wrote a program to interrogate our membership database
and generate invoice CSV files based on my understanding of the business
functions in GnuCash and the format documented in the manual, and tried
testing importing to make sure my data was correct. I found results that
didn't match expectations, tried various things to diagnose and fix them,
succeeding in most, but finding one thing which seemed like a potential bug.

The potential bug is that there is a visible difference between entering an
invoice in by hand and importing it when there is a discount involved.

When I hand-enter the sample invoice, I get an invoice line item which has
a unit price of $75, a discount of 25%, and a subtotal of $56.25
When I import the sample invoice, I get an invoice line item which has a
unit price of $75, a discount of 25%, and a subtotal of $75.

Is this because of a problem in my data? Possibly. The manual doesn't
mention anything like this behavior, but Chapter 18 of the manual is
somewhat difficult to understand anyway.


> Presuming this is legit and going through a bank account you'd only see
> the received amounts anyway and any discounts would be back calculated,
> right?
>

Presuming I shouldn't take the phrasing "Presuming this is legit" as an
insult, then yes, the bank would only see $56.25 deposited, but no, the
discounts are not back-calculated. They are part of the initial agreement.


> I mean, who is fooling who?  Surely you know what is going on?
>

Yes, I know what's going on. I know that I've manually entered hundreds of
monthly invoices that have the unit price/discount structure I'm trying to
use, without problems. I know that I don't want to continue entering
hundreds of monthly invoices. And I know that the import feature is not
giving me the results I want. I don't know if that's because I'm using it
wrong or it's buggy.