[GNC] Assign one payment to multiple invoices (from several customers)

[Adrien Monteleone]

As for implementation, I don’t know what behind-the-scenes looks like, but from the UI, I tried 2 methods that seemed the most logical. (but of course, don’t work)

#1 Business > Customer > Process Payment > Select
Set Customer Name > Matches Regex > “.”
Select more than one customer, then `Select`

Rather than showing only the first selected customer’s invoices as it does now, instead, you’d see all open invoices from all selected customers.

#2 Business > Customer > Find Invoice
Search for all unpaid invoices by whatever means, Invoice ID/Customer > Matches Regex > “.” works fine here too.
Select multiple invoices from different customers.
Click ‘Process Payment’ (currently greyed out when you select the second customer’s invoice)

So I don’t think the UI needs a major overhaul to accomplish it. (assuming the backend logic would allow it)

Of course, that might be terribly difficult or tedious.

First, a payment would have to go into a pool, then applied to each invoice, then any remainder assigned to the original customer. (but which one is the ‘original’ or ‘paying’ customer? that might be where some UI changes would be necessary)

As for reporting, the upcoming owner-report would be invaluable here for keeping things straight as it identifies specific payments applied to specific invoices.

Regards,
Adrien

> On Sep 12, 2019 w37d255, at 8:56 AM, Mike or Penny Novack <stepbystepfarm at comcast.net> wrote:
> 
> On 9/12/2019 7:40 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:
>>>> Um, no, it does not appear regularly.  Indeed, this is the first time in
>>>> 19 years that someone has asked about paying invoices for multiple
>>>> customers with a single payment.
> I would think this situation rare, but not unheard of.
> 
> As the customer, I usually take pains NOT to put the vendor into this situation. For example, say we are paying for magazine sub renewals for our two oldest great grandchildren, I would write a separate check for each invoice. But not ALWAYS. Thus when paying excise tax on our cars (two tax invoices from the town)  I know that sometimes I have written a single check. So we'll take that as an example. What would the town tax collector do to enter if using gnucash?
> 
> I assume she would use her eyes and brains. See that the total of the check matched the total due on both invoices. Then probably enter each invoice paid for its proper amount. After all, what would be done if there were two checks, but the check numbers had been entered manually (as they are with counter checks and/or temporary ones for a new account) and by accident the check number duplicated.
> 
> Michael D Novack