[GNC] How can I refund this payment through PayPal, using business feature?

Adrien Monteleone adrien.monteleone at lusfiber.net
Wed Dec 21 16:39:37 EST 2022


I don't see why you went through the trouble of steps 2-4.

I suppose if you managed to get back to zero, no harm no foul, but I'd 
anticipate you're going to have a big mess in the future with that setup.

AP is usually one bucket - for all payables. GnuCash tracks each vendor 
for you, and neither your Bank, nor PayPal are vendors either. They are 
sources of funds, thus Assets.

This shouldn't be much different than cancelling a paper check, or 
getting an ACH or Credit Card partial refund.

Regards,
Adrien

On 12/21/22 2:20 PM, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
> I think I have achieved this with two reversing transactions, done in the
> following order.
> 
> 1)
> Credit: Liabilities:Accounts Payable:PayPal
> Debit: Expenses:Postage and Delivery
> 
> That makes the balance on Liabilities:Accounts Payable:PayPal -*£1 *
> 
> 2)
> Debit: Liabilities:Accounts Payable:PayPal
> Credit: Assets:Current Assets:Checking Account
> 
> That seems to get back to where I started, with £100, and zero everywhere
> else.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 21 Dec 2022 at 18:52, Dr. David Kirkby <
> drkirkby at kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>> I'm trying to work out how to refund a payment, made to a vendor (Royal
>> Mail) using PayPal to pay for this.
>>
>> The attached file is very similar to the standard business accounts, with
>> the bare minimum of changes needed to demonstrate my problem.  The only
>> real changes I have made are
>>
>> 1) Added a PayPal account - Assets:Current Assets: PayPal
>> 2) Made Liabilities:Accounts Payable a placeholder account.
>> 3) Added Liabilities: Accounts Payable:Bank
>> 4) Added Liabilities: Accounts Payable:PayPal
>> 5) Added Royal Mail as a vendor.
>> 6) Set the opening balance on the checking account to £100. The PayPal
>> balance is £0.
>>
>>
>> *Next I generated a Bill for Royal Mail for £1 for postage, and posted
>> that to *
>>
>> *Liabilities: Accounts Payable:PayPal *
>>
>> *using the expense account Expense:Postage and Delivery. *
>>
>>
>> *Next I paid PayPal, using the bank account. *
>>
>>
>> *At this point the expenses risen to £1 due to the postage, and the
>> balance of the bank account has reduced from £100 to £99. *
>>
>> The
>> *£1 paid was actually for Royal Mail to collect the package, but I
>> realised it would not be ready in time, so cancelled the collection. *
>>
>> I assume there are going to be 2 stages to this.
>> 1) Royal Mail gives a *£1 *refund to PayPal.
>> 2) I transfer the PayPal balance of *£1 *back to my bank account.
>>
>> If this is the way to go, I know how to do the second part of this, but
>> I'm totally lost about how to do the first part.



More information about the gnucash-user mailing list