[GNC] Help needed in Australia

[Michael or Penny Novack]

> - We record expenses at the moment of payment since most are purchased
> online, invoiced, and paid at the same time.
>
> - But regarding income, we always invoice customers first, and record
> receivable when doing the invoicing. I know how to make an invoice
> with GnuCash and how to do a transaction between the receivable asset
> and current asset later.

You are on accrual (because of how the income side is handled).

You say that expenses are booked at purchase time AND immediately paid 
for. But that is still consistent with accrual. Accrual allows for a 
difference in time between when an expense is occurred and when paid 
for. But it does not require a difference in time. Essentially, when 
there is no difference in time the differences between "cash" and 
"accrual" disappear.

If you are using accrual but reporting on a cash basis, before each 
filing you need adjustment transactions. You run the report for filing, 
then reverse these transactions. Not such a terribly big deal if you are 
filing quarterly (or annually), etc. UNLESS perhaps some of the income 
or expense accounts are line items on the filing. In that case you need 
to track more than just "gross income not yet received" and "gross 
expenses not yet paid" << the still unposted accounts receivable and  
accounts payable >> If line items are involved, then you will have to 
look at the individual invoices not yet posted to create the adjustment 
transactions.

Michael D Novack

PS -- depending on work flow, you might be able to take care, for 
example, that there are no outstanding payables right before reporting. 
In other words, cut the checks for anything that would affect a line 
item. For example, I kept books for non-profits. Major filing is annual 
and "printing and postage" is a line item on the 990/990-EZ. So I would 
make sure there was no unpaid bill for printing or postage of say 12/30