Can't use AR type accounts with invoices

[Adrien Monteleone]

Thanks again Geert,

Indeed, the type alone was the issue. I placed the desired accounts back under their A/R & A/P parents and everything still works the way I want.

As far as I can tell, the customer and vendor reports still work properly because I still use invoices and bills at some point in the process. The special accounts are just for accruals. If I notice any other report issues I’ll be sure to post an addendum.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Dec 19, 2017, at 2:38 AM, Geert Janssens <geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be> wrote:
> 
> Adrien,
> 
> To clarify your experience: the limiting  factor is indeed the account type. 
> A/R and A/P type accounts can only be used to post invoices/bills/vouchers to 
> and to assign payments to customers/vendors/employees. This is a limitation 
> embedded deeply into the design and can't be easily changed unfortunately.
> 
> As you found you can create an account of type Asset instead of A/R to do what 
> you want. What is not clear in your report is that you can add this Asset 
> account under your A/R account as a subaccount so at least your chart of 
> accounts continues to make sense.
> 
> Similarly for A/P you can create subaccounts of type Liability. You can *name* 
> them A/P-something if you prefer, but the account *type* must not be A/P.
> 
> To be complete, I haven't verified if all reports will be able to handle this 
> unusual arrangement of accounts though.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Geert
> 
> Op dinsdag 19 december 2017 06:11:10 CET schreef 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
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