[GNC] Bill Date Confusion

[Adrien Monteleone]

I recall that there is at least one bug report (or a discussion in a report) about the ‘Date Opened’ being superfluous and a candidate for being removed. But I too think of it as the date you happened to create the bill to enter it in GC. I think it is in a bug about the invoice fields being non-editable in-place.

The same goes for invoices to customers. I’m not sure how much utility recording it provides, if any.

Regardless of ‘E’, all line items will be posted to your books as of ‘D’. Personally, I think an option to post as of the line-item date would have some use and remove the need for adjusting entries, but I understand why it currently works the way it does.

So if you want an item with date ‘E’ in an older period to hit your books for that older period, you would need to create an “Accrued Expenses” account, post a transaction between it and the actual expense account for that item, then when you create the bill, you set that line item against Accrued Expenses instead of the actual expense account. (because it was already recorded) This new account is a holding location to record expenses in their actual periods (staying true to the Matching Principle) and still be able to account for them on vendor bills in later periods. Sometimes, you might have to create the accrued expense transaction after the bill arrives because you don’t know the exact date or details at the time you incurred it. If this is a regular occurrence, you won’t be able to run accurate P&Ls until all affected vendor bills are in hand.

The same would work for the AR side with customers but with an Accrued Revenue account where you post as work is done, (thus revenue earned) and then later create an invoice to the customer.

‘A’ should match ‘D’ as you noted.

I’ll add an ‘F’ - GnuCash Due Date should match ‘B’ vendor’s due date.

The ‘Due Date’ (B/F) not showing on the invoice screen would be a good RFE. I think it should be there. You shouldn’t have to hunt for it.

It does show however on a printed copy. (on screen or paper)

It also shows in the AP register as well as the Bills Due Reminder.

Regards,
Adrien


> On Oct 28, 2019 w44d301, at 11:38 AM, Fran_3 via gnucash-user <gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
> 
> On a bill from a vendor I would typically find...
> A - Bill Date
> B - Due Date
> Looking at a bill formerly entered into gnuCash I see 3 dates...
> 
> C - Date Opened
> D - Date Posted
> E - Date
> There has been some confusion on which dates on the gnuCash (C, D, E) bill would match up with A & B.
> I'm thinking when looking at a formerly entered bill...
> 
> C - Date Opened = the date we happen to enter the bill into GnuCash
> D - Date Posted = "Bill Date" on the vendors bill to us ("A" above)
> 
> E - Date = Date item was purchased from the vendor when billed monthly for multiple purchases (else 1st of prior month to indicate the item was purchased last month)
> 
> Thanks for any help.
> PS - Note that the "Due Date" does not show on the gnuCash Bill but does appear on the Vendor Report (along with "D" above which is referred to as  "Date Posted" on the formerly posted bill and as simply "Date" on the Vendor Report)