How do I clear unpaid invoices?

[Chris Good]

From: Kurt Padilla [mailto:kurt.padilla at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 3 September 2016 2:04 PM
To: Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au>; gnucash-user at gnucash.org
Cc: bob at rsmits.ca
Subject: Re: How do I clear unpaid invoices?

 

Since the club is essentially covering these unpaid memberships, isn't it better to capture that expense?

Kurt

 

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016, 21:28 Chris Good <chris.good at ozemail.com.au <mailto:chris.good at ozemail.com.au> > wrote:

> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2016 12:32:35 -0700
> From: Robert Smits <bob at rsmits.ca <mailto:bob at rsmits.ca> >
> To: GnuCash List <gnucash-user at gnucash.org <mailto:gnucash-user at gnucash.org> >
> Subject: How do I clear unpaid invoices?
> Message-ID: <201609021232.35899.bob at rsmits.ca <mailto:201609021232.35899.bob at rsmits.ca> >
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="utf-8"
>
> I use gnucash 2.4.13 to manage finances of my Amateur Radio Club.
>
> Each fall I send out invoices for membership dues and then when I receive
> payment, I process the payment and it goes into our checking account.
>
> Of course, not everyone invoiced pays, so next year I still have
outstanding
> invoices that show up on the balance sheet as accounts receivable.
>
> How do I get get rid of these outstanding invoices? I thought I could just
> mark the invoices as not active, but they still seem to show up in
accounts
> receivable.
>
> All advice gratefully received.
>
> Bob Smits.
> --
> bob at rsmits.ca <mailto:bob at rsmits.ca> 

Hi Bob,

Unpost the invoices to get them out of Accounts Receivable, then re-use
them, even for other customers, as you cannot delete an invoice.

Regards, Chris Good



Hi Kurt & Bob,

 

I am not an accountant so Bob, please refer to your accountant if you are unsure.

 

Bob, you said you wanted to mark the invoices as not active, so presumably there was no legal requirement for the members to pay their membership dues, so therefore there is no ‘expense’ if they do not.

If there is a legal requirement and therefore there is ‘bad debt’ to be written off as an expense, please see

https://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.6/C/gnucash-help/busnss-ar-payment1.html#busnss-ar-baddebt

 

I think you could also do a credit note if you want to go to that trouble. There may be legal implications if the amateur club must do audited book keeping.

If there is no legal requirement for members to pay their dues, the invoices should not really be posted until there is a commitment that they will be paid, as there is no Accounts Receivable asset.

 

I’ll leave it to others who run clubs to advise how they track un-renewed memberships.

 

Regards, Chris Good

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/pkcs7-signature
Size: 4817 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.gnucash.org/pipermail/gnucash-user/attachments/20160903/64cf65fb/attachment.p7s>