Lot links

[Chris Harris]

Thank you.  I think this is a workable solution.  I have fixed the
invoices for 1 customer.  It does take some time because they have
partially paid invoices.  I had to un-post and re-post all invoices
from 2014 to the present.  The most confusing part is when I choose
process payment, and choose an invoice, and a prepayment, I have to
set the payment amount to 0.  I tried the default value, but that
creates another real entry.  I tried using the number I thought as
correct ( the amount of the prepayment ), but that is also not
correct.  I went back and read the link again, and realized that I
have to use 0 as the payment amount.

So this was not clear to me but, now I understand this amount is the
additional payment above the prepayment, so it should be 0.  I hope
this will help someone else understand in the future.

Thank you.

On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 5:44 AM, Geert Janssens
<geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
> On Thursday 12 November 2015 18:26:55 Chris Harris wrote:
>
>> Thank you. I have spent some time trying to understand how I will
>
>> correct these issues. I have not made any changes yet. I selected
>
>> the first prepayment that I see. 09-04-2014 for 1200. When I look in
>
>> the AR account the only payment on that day is for 1000. There is an
>
>> invoice on 09-01-2014 for 1200. I opened the .xml file and searched
>
>> for the date. I only see a single payment of 1000 on that day. Same
>
>> as I see in the AR account.
>
>>
>
>> Could you explain how it calculates the prepayment of 1200? Is there
>
>> anyway I can delete this pre-payment?
>
>>
>
>> Thank you
>
>>
>
> Hi Chris,
>
>
>
> To figure out where the 1200 pre-payment comes from, you can examine the
> lots found in your AR account. To do so, you can open the Lot Viewer on your
> AR account.
>
>
>
> Each lot ties together an invoice with one or more payments (or a link to
> another lot in case the lot link transactions are still in use). A lot with
> a zero balance is considered closed. This means the invoice amount is
> balanced by the payments in the lot. Each lot which is not balanced (the
> invoice or part thereof is still unpaid) is called "open". The remaining
> balance of the lot defines the amount of the pre-payment you see in the
> payment window.
>
>
>
> So in your example you should look for an open lot with a net balance of
> 1200. It's very well possible that your 1000 payment is tied into a lot with
> (part of) another payment for 200.
>
>
>
> To get your pre-payments fixed, I'd suggest these additional things:
>
>
>
> 0. Make a backup of your data file before you start ! So you can always
> revert to the original state if something goes badly wrong (it shouldn't).
>
>
>
> 1. As already suggested in the previous mail, if you never used credit notes
> to offset an invoice, remove all lot links in your AR account. They will
> only make the job more complicated. Removing these lot links may seem to
> make matters worse by adding more pre-payments and/or unpaid invoices.
> That's a good thing however, as these would be more difficult to spot
> otherwise.
>
>
>
> 2. In case you have this option enabled, disable it while correcting
> payments:
>
> Edit->Preferences->Business->Process Payment on posting for Invoices and/or
> Bills
>
>
>
> 3. Unless you made mistakes while entering your data (that is the
> transactions you have entered don't match your paper trail of invoices and
> payments), you should not have to alter any of the real transactions
> directly. It should suffice to fix up the lot associations only, be it
> directly or indirectly.
>
> With directly I mean by manipulating the lots via the lot viewer. This is an
> advanced method and I would recommend to use it only if no indirect method
> can help.
>
> Indirectly means by using the "Assign as payment" menu option, or by opening
> the payment dialog and select one or more invoices and payments that belong
> together.
>
>
>
> 4. Follow the instructions in the link [1]. Topic 7 on this page explicitly
> deals with correcting payments that got assigned to the wrong invoices.
>
>
>
> To return to your example:
>
> You say you find a payment transaction for 1000 on 09-04-2014. For which
> invoice was this ? Find this invoice, unpost and repost it. This should
> ensure that no more (other) payments are associated with this invoice.
>
> Next in the AR register, select the payment transaction for 1000 on
> 09-04-2014 and choose "Assign as payment" from the menu (or context menu by
> right-clicking). Enter the customer, select the right invoice and click Ok.
> That should fix the payment for this particular invoice and most likely will
> also alter the list of pre-payments/unpaid invoices that will show for this
> customer. From there, re-evaluate the state of the pre-payments and
> re-iterate as often as necessary.
>
>
>
> Note that the "Assign as payment" method can only be used when the invoice
> is paid with one single payment. If you have invoices that have been paid in
> part, you will probably have to:
>
> 1. make sure the correct payments or partial payments are not assigned to
> another invoice (unpost and repost that particular invoice if they are)
>
> 2. Open the Process Payment dialog for your customers
>
> 3. Select the customer
>
> 4. Select the correct invoice with it's payments or partial payments, adjust
> the amount to match the total payment and click ok.
>
>
>
> Will this get you going ?
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
>
> Geert
>
>
>
> [1] http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Correcting_Business_Transaction_Mistakes
>
>> On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 11:00 AM, Geert Janssens
>
>>
>
>> <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
>
>> > On Sunday 08 November 2015 17:05:35 Chris Harris wrote:
>
>> >> I am currently using the latest version 2.6.9 I have used the
>
>> >> business functions for many years. Many of my invoices show
>
>> >> prepayments, although no customer has ever made a prepayment. They
>
>> >> have made partial payments. I have run the check and repair
>
>> >> several
>
>> >> times. If I view the lots in my a/r account, there are many
>
>> >> entries.
>
>> >
>
>> > "Pre-payment" is used as a general term meaning a payment that is
>
>> > not
>
>> > associated with any invoice (yet).
>
>> > Having many lots is not a sign of trouble in itself. It is normal to
>
>> > have many lots in your a/r account. Even without lot link
>
>> > transactions, each payment gets put into a lot together with the
>
>> > invoice it pays.
>
>> >
>
>> > Unfortunately check & repair has only limited capabilities to
>
>> > correct
>
>> > superfluous use of lot link transactions. So it may be necessary to
>
>> > manually correct some invoice/payment relations.
>
>> >
>
>> >> While researching this I read a comment that these are not needed
>
>> >> unless you offset an invoice with a credit note.
>
>> >
>
>> > That's true in the strictest sense. However if they *were* used to
>
>> > record a given payment, removing the lot link transaction will also
>
>> > break the only link gnucash has between the invoice and the payment.
>
>> >
>
>> >> So my question is,
>
>> >> Is it OK for me to manually delete all of the lot links? Will this
>
>> >> mark my old invoices as unpaid?
>
>> >
>
>> > It will mark your old invoices as unpaid and will create a lot of
>
>> > pre- payments as well.
>
>> >
>
>> > That may be the first step to clean up though as from there on you
>
>> > can re-assign the "pre-payments" properly to your invoices again.
>
>> >
>
>> > For more info on how to deal with lot link transactions post 2.6.6,
>
>> > look at this wiki page:
>
>> >
>
>> > Regards,
>
>> >
>
>> > Geert
>
>