Recording all purchases under a vendor???

[Maf. King]

On Wed 25 March 15 02:26:32 nssimpson wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I'm a complete accounting newbie and have been recording all my business
> transactions within Excel. My accountant and bookkeeper are happy with this
> but I've decided to move into the 21st century so have installed GNUCash.
> 
> I am VAT registered so always need to account for that. I believe I have
> correctly configured that part so when posting bills and invoices it does
> correctly splits the total value and record the VAT element in the VAT
> liabilities sub-account.
> 
> Around half of my vendors require immediate payment before shipping any
> goods so I either pay them on card or bank transfer. Now when I get their
> invoice should I be recording it as a vendor bill and posting it so it
> appears in accounts payable and then immediately setting it to paid? I've
> been reading help documentation and watching YouTube tutorials and some
> people simply enter them straight into an expenses sub-account rather than
> doing this so I'm a bit confused.
> 

Hi Nick,

Welcome to the mailing list. 

Are you in the UK?  I'm not an accountant, so don't take anything I say to be 
"legal" advice... but I do have a few years under my belt with both GC and UK 
VAT.


Do you use accrual or cash reporting for the VAT?  If you don't know what that 
means - for the bills you don't pay up front, is the date that counts for the 
VAT return the date on the bill (accrual) or the date you actually pay it 
(cash)?

The rest of my answer to this depends on your reporting basis... 

Cheers,
Maf.


> I also have the same question about customers that pay upfront but I'm
> guessing the best way of recording those is to record under customer
> invoice, posting it and recording it as paid.
> 
> Then when it comes to office purchases, do I record the invoices I get from
> say Amazon as a vendor bill or do I simply enter them into an expenses
> sub-account?
> 
> I have read that reports differ depending on how things are logged but I'm
> just a bit lost at the minute. I don't understand when I should enter
> transactions directly within a sub-account.
> 
> Any help would be really appreciated.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Nick
>