[GNC] Customer Deposits

[Adrien Monteleone]

You can create such a liability account though you'd have to run a 
separate Account Report on it and later combine it with a Customer 
Report outside of GnuCash. (in a spreadsheet) And when you record 
pre-payments, you have to do them manually in that Deposits account, 
then later, 'pay' the invoice with the Deposits account balance using 
the Process Payments feature.

I used to do it this way, but reverted to simply doing normal 
pre-payments for ease of generating reports. It is easy enough to see 
the pre-payments with an A/R Aging or individual Customer Report. (that 
is if they exceed posted invoices. If not, technically, they aren't a 
liability)

Negative A/R *is* a Liability because it is a contra-balance in an asset 
account.

Regards,
Adrien

On 2/5/22 4:52 PM, Keith Fetterman wrote:
> Is there a way to configure GnuCash to enter customer pre-payments a “Customer Deposits” liability account under the “Liabilities” account and have the pre-payment appear in a customer report?
> 
> Currently, when you enter a customer payment as a pre-payment it appears as a negative amount in the accounts receivable account.  I would like pre-payments to entered into a “customer deposits" liability account so they appear as a liability to the company.  When I pay the customer invoices, I can pay them from the “customer deposits” liability account.
> 
> I experimented with using a Customer Payment to enter the payment into the AR account then use a journal entry between the AR account and the “customer deposits” liability account.  When I pay an invoice from the “customer deposits” account, I get two payments in the customer report.
> 
> I can create transactions between a bank account and a  “customer deposits” liability account to represent the customer deposit, but it does not appear in a customer report.  It would be nice to have this shown in the customer report.