Hayes re: I need a report

[Derek Atkins]

Hi Terri,

Terri Hayes <asl4me at gmail.com> writes:

> Derek, I think i understand your question and why your paradigm is
> different from mine -and will try to explain:
> What i believe i understand you to mean -is that you invoice for a product
> as delivered. You get an order for a product -you deliver that number of
> product and submit one or more invoices and you expect payment in full for
> all invoices. To you -whats important is the total due -regardless if how
> many invoices have been submitted or how many products have been delivered.

Nope, that's not what I mean.  I ran a consulting business, so my
product was me.  My invoices were for my work-product (e.g., my time).

> Your relationship with your recievables is about final totals -not
> individual invoices.

This is certainly true; it was unimportant how many invoices I sent.  I
only cared about whether or not I was paid.  And if I wasn't paid then I
could go print a Customer Report to let them know how much was left to
pay.

> My (and any service business) has a different relationship with our
> invoices.

I disagree with the statement "and any service business".

>    I work *by* invoice. So on any given day i might have one to five
> invoices going to one to five different companies. These companies will pay
> me -By invoice (almost Never by total due from company) because i will have
> provided services to one or more Departments in the company -and each of
> them will pay me using different resources and at different times. So while
> seeing how much a single company owes me is handy for an "in the next 30
> days my income should be about "this much""... Perspective... What i need
> to keep a close eye on is which individual invoices have not been paid and
> when do I expect them ...

Why?  This is a serious question.  If you bill different departments in
the same company, are they being PAID by different departments?  Don't
most companies have a single Payables department?  Certainly every
company that I've worked for/in (at least those under 1,000 employees)
have a single department that pays bills for the company.  I admit that
I can't answer for the three major-sized companies I've worked for.

But back to the question at hand.  Say you have multiple invoices to the
same company (multiple invoices to multiple companies doesn't matter
because per-invoice or per-company is the same when it's a 1:1 mapping),
do they not pay the invoices in order?  Or if they do miss an invoice,
do you specifically need to *point them* to the missing invoice?  Or is
it purely a question for your own mind/use?

> Because I send out my invoices each saturday and expect payment for that
> week's invoices to arrive any time from one week to 30 days later. Having a
> list showing the invoices outstanding and the day they're "due" (expected)
> lets me know if i can expect money this week (and about how much) or if
> there is not really anything coming in for another two or three weeks (or
> when)...

Okay, now THIS is certainly an interesting idea.

One could take the "Bills Due Reminder" and modify it to show Invoices.

One could also take the Aging report and modify it a bit to show a list
instead of grouping.

>    All of this happens long before the 30 days late time period -and
> none of it can be easily seen on the customer report which basically shows
> a list of every invoice and every payment and somewhere in that list are
> invoices which have not yet been paid... But i dont see any way to subtotal
> it or ignore paid invoices and payments received...So its really not an
> easy glance to find what my current income might be at any given moment.

True.  What you're asking for is a new report.  The pieces are all
there, but it's not put together the way you're asking.

> Thank you for asking!

You're welcome.

> Terri Hayes

-derek

> On Mon, Mar 14, 2016 at 12:40 PM Derek Atkins <warlord at mit.edu> wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Terri Hayes <asl4me at gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > ps - I am not a programmer - and I *am* a business owner - so I dont
>> > really have the time to learn to program...
>> > this kind of very basic functionality should not be this difficult -
>> > I'm still reeling that the person who crated the invoice process in
>> > GNUCash didn't include this as a basic report..
>> > I dont get it - what kind of business doesn't need to know a list of
>> > what's outstanding?
>>
>> A business that cares about how much a Customer owes and doesn't
>> specifically care about "which invoice" was paid or not.  Which, as a
>> business owner and the author of the GnuCash Business Tools, is exactly
>> why it's written that way.  In the original version of the tools, you
>> NEVER "paid" an invoice; only the customer.  The fact that invoices get
>> "marked paid" was a side effect.  Only more recently can you actually
>> specify which invoices get marked.
>>
>> Still, the Customer Report exists to show how much a customer owes.  And
>> it will tell you which payments applied to which invoices, and give a
>> running total.  Have you looked at that report?  Why, specifically, is
>> that not sufficient for your (or your customer's) needs?
>>
>> > Thanks again for any help you can give me.
>> > Terri Hayes
>>
>> > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>
>> -derek
>>
>> --
>>        Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
>>        Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
>>        URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
>>        warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available
>>
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available