[GNC] Invoices processing with Shopify payments?

[Adrien Monteleone]

Etienne,

Unfortunately, the current Process Payment dialog does not facilitate 
other splits in the transaction, such as a payment fee.

Enter the payment without it as if you had received the full amount.

Then from the receiving register (Bank, Undeposited Funds, etc.) edit 
the payment to reduce the amount you've received and account for the fee.

Original Transaction:

Dr. Bank 40
   Cr. A/R 40


After Edit:

Dr. Bank 39
Dr. Expenses:Shopify Fees 1
   Cr. A/R 40

-----

As for how you handle the invoices at all, as invoices, or as regular 
transactions, that is up to you and your business needs.

The Business Features were designed based on the use case of a small 
service consultancy, but is certainly adpatable to other businesses.

Using the Business Features offers several advantages:

1. Individual invoice due date tracking by Customer/Vendor
2. Matching of payments to specific invoices
3. Statements of Account
4. Receivables tracking with aging

If you use manual transactions you'll lose those features. That may or 
may not be duplicated via Shopify or other software, so you'll have to 
decide how important those things are, and if you can obtain them 
elsewhere if needed.

If you decide to go the manual route, then you'll need to decide the 
level of granularity you need in your GnuCash book. You can continue to 
import individual sales and recording individual payments or you can 
aggregate them on a periodic basis such as daily, or monthly even. 
Aggregating of course reduces the number of transactions you have to 
enter. Many folks who operate a Point of Sale system (in person, or 
online) enter aggregate sales transactions into their accounting 
software as their POS system handles the rest.

If you choose to aggregate, you'll need to devise a method of allocating 
the fees as you mentioned. Though I'd suggest that is a bit overkill. 
(similar to trying to allocate tax) The fees are a business expense 
regardless of the item, so they don't belong with the item's type at 
all, any more than say your domain name or hosting fees need to be 
allocated.

Regardless of that point, which method of using GnuCash you choose is up 
to you.


Regards,
Adrien

On 1/16/23 6:13 AM, Etienne wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I am trying to use GNUCash to deal with Shopify orders and payments. How do you process payments to an invoice when there is a Shopify payment fee? I have been scratching my head over this.
> A customer buys something of USD 40, with taxes included. So I create an invoice in GNUCash with a Tax table to calculate the VAT I have to pay.
> 
> The customer pays the USD 40 to Shopify, Shopify charges a payment fee based on what payment method the customer uses, e.g. a USD 1 credit card fee.
> So my Shopify balance is then 40 - 1 = 39 dollars
> Then after a week or so, Shopify pays me, in this case USD 39 dollars.
> 
> I can’t seem to process that deposit from Shopify as a payment to that invoice as it is USD 1 off as my Invoice is USD 40 and so it my Shopify A/Receivables in GNUCash.
> 
> In the invoice I can’t add the credit card fee, as GNUCash does not allow Expenses to be added to an Invoice.
> 
> Sure I can add the payment to my back account when Shopify pays me:
> bank: 39
> Shopify A/Receivables: -40
> expenses: shopify payments: 1
> 
> When you have multiple orders and 1 payment from Shopify you have multiple payment fees, so I would need to add them up.
> However, I would like to see the payment expenses for each order, to allocate them to the correct expense account (different product categories, so multiple shopify payments expense accounts).
> 
> 
> Alternatively, I could skip using Invoices and just enter the Shopify orders as normal transactions in my A/Receivables:
> Shopify A/R: 39
> income:Net Sales: 30
> liabilities: taxes VAT: 10
> expenses: shopify payment: -1
> 
> 
> Any thoughts of how I can use Invoices or should i just use transactions? Invoices create the benefit that I can import them from a CSV file and have the same invoice numbers of Shopify in my GNUCash too.