Is there a difference between creating a new customer and new account?

[Wm...]

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 20:38:51 <55A6FD1B.8000909 at apollo3.com>
Larry D. James <ljames at apollo3.com> wrote...

>I understand what you're saying.  My question might not have been as 
>clear as intended.  I probably don't have the diction to make fully 
>clear.  But a reference here and there is a great help.
>
>I understand what both of you have said.  I have introduced Gnucash to 
>one of my clients who don't have any background in accounting.  I gave 
>her steps in creating customers and told her when she's needs to bill 
>someone, start off by entering them in the system using the new 
>(create) customer option.  Then proceed to making a new invoice for 
>that customer, and eventually follow thought with adding payments to 
>the invoice for the customer.
>
>She used the words I created the new account.  I wanted to say, you 
>didn't create an account, you created a customer.  I wanted to say 
>there is a difference.  While I choose to refer to the difference by 
>name.  I wanted more concrete ways of validating why she should call 
>the first process creating customer instead of creating account (for a 
>customer).
>
>I realize when I go to a vendor the vendors refer to us customers as 
>having an account with us.  So the customer does have an account.  I 
>guess in a sense we are creating an account by the customers name. So 
>while in the actually books there is some similarities, and of course 
>there is the difference that you guys are mentioning, such as the 
>customers are living breathing being.  But for the record, what is the 
>difference when we are looking in the books.
>
>A similar question is the fact that we have more than one data file. 
>The building where I'm introducing Guncash have more than one lawyer 
>there who will have separate data files.  I refer to them as different 
>businesses... different data files.  She has a tendency to want to 
>refer to them as different accounts.
>
>While I understand clearly the real difference, I was looking for a 
>good way to use the right nomenclature to explain this to my client.
>
>That was the sense that I was mentioning.

Whoa!

I think this is the first time you have mentioned lawyers in this 
conversation.  The legal profession uses accounts (both in terminology 
and accounting) in ways very unusual to a normal business or individual.

You don't say where you are but every jurisdiction works in a slightly 
different way and it is a good 20 years since I last did any specialised 
law accounting but here are some reasons why I wouldn't use gnc unless 
you are already familiar with legal accounting.

Accounts may refer to money held on behalf of a client or other party, 
these are (even if not government mandated) usually kept physically 
separate, i.e. different actual bank accounts, in some cases different 
banks and multiple bank accounts.  If the money is held in trust there 
is a whole layer that goes with that.

The you have fee earners accounts (the lawyers and other people that 
generate income) as well as expenses that get allocated to accounts.

It goes on.

I haven't thought about this at any length but I'm not sure I'd 
implement gnc in a legal practice with multiple fee earners without 
careful analysis.

Maybe I have misunderstood what you are planning?

-- 
Wm...