Reports, (the heart of darkness)

John Whitmore arigead at gmail.com
Thu Dec 8 18:05:16 EST 2016


On Thu, Dec 08, 2016 at 04:25:29PM -0500, Mike or Penny Novack wrote:
> On 12/8/2016 8:31 AM, John Whitmore wrote:
> > On Wed, Dec 07, 2016 at 05:09:19PM -0500, Aaron Laws wrote:
> 
> > This thred has thrown up two methods of doing Cash based accounting.
> > Aaron's method is outlined above, and I'm not quite sure I fully
> > understand it, and the other method was NOT to use GnuCash for invoicing
> > but to use an external spread sheet or something. Then you just record
> > the payments in GnuCash. I wonder could you expand on the above method:
> 
> There are other possibilities.
> 
> For example, once you have accepted the idea of perhaps having to enter data
> into two places, you wouldn't have to use a spread sheet based system for
> the invoicing. You could use gnucash. You could have a separate set of books
> to handle invoicing. That's where you would track what invoices not paid,
> keep your customer information, etc. If one of my organization wanted
> "member statements" (none do at the moment; National handles this for the
> one organization that has "membership") then that is what I would probably
> do.
> 
> The "adjustment" method may not be all that difficult either. That way, your
> books are accrual basis from gnucash's point of view (so you can use all the
> business features) but logically on the cash basis at the end of each
> reporting period (any balance in A/R requires and adjustment downward of
> income and any balance in A/P and adjustment downward in expenses. And then
> of course reverse that for the start of the next period. Simple if you don't
> have to categorize expenses in a complex way (as non-profits do; we don't
> PAY taxes, but we still may have to report) since then you don;t have to
> figure out the adjustment for each category.
> 

Thanks for getting back to me. I like the Adjustment method, well I think it's
the easiest. Basically I need to adjust A/R down, for invoices which have not
been paid yet. But all this balanced accounting means I need an account to
transfer money into and back out of at the end of the accounting period. So
where would that account belong? In my head that would have to go to an
expense account, but as you now I'm not an accountant. So:

31/12/2016  A/R -> Expense:Adjust   : 1000
01/01/2017  Expense:adjust -> A/R   : 1000

That makes sense to me even though it may not be an Expense account I'm not
sure where it would best belong.


> Michael  D Novack
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