Can't use AR type accounts with invoices

[Adrien Monteleone]

So, trying to work around the multi-period posting date issue in another thread, I opted to bring in a vestige of paper accounting and utilize an Accrued Revenue account. (otherwise known as ‘unbilled revenue’ or ‘unbilled work’)

The guidance I found online suggested this should be a Current Asset, generally of type A/R.

I tried to create an A/R sub-account. This worked until I tried to adjust an invoice so it’s line items hit this Accrued Revenue account instead of an Income account. The invoice feature won’t let me see it in the list to select it.

So, I moved the account out of the parent A/R and placed it under Current Assets. Still no dice.

Apparently, the account ‘type’ was ‘A/Receivable’ and the business features look at this when deciding what to allow you to use in an invoice and bill. This type is apparently not allowed, even though it isn’t the main A/R account created by the Business Features and to which I do not manually post.

Note, I can *post* the invoice to the standard A/R account (or likely any other A/R type I create) but I can’t use other A/R types for the line items. This means contra-accounts are not allowed.

The solution was to delete the Accrued Revenue account I just created, and re-create it with the parent Current Assets and give it type Asset. Now everything works, but instead of being able to roll this under A/R where it belongs, I have a flatter account tree. Now I recall a similar issue trying to create A/P sub-accounts some months ago. There’s no point. The business features won’t let you use them. (except to post to, you can’t use it for bill line-items)

I suppose this behavior is intended and I understand the urge to prevent people from using accounts that make a mess of things, but it requires yet another work around.

Just passing this on in case anyone else runs into this.

Regards,
Adrien