[GNC] How to handle (double-entry bookkeeping conventions?)

[David Cousens]

Simon

When you made the sale you will have made an entry something like

Assets: A/R            Dr xxx
Income:Sales           Cr xxx.

To record  the receipt of the money in your Paypal account and remove
the amount from the A/R balance and the fees expense then the following
entries will do the trick:

Assets:Paypal           Dr xxx-yy
Expenses:PP Fees        Dr yy
Assets:A/R              Cr xxx    (as a Payment against the invoice).

David Cousens

On Sat, 2025-02-22 at 13:55 -0700, Simon Roberts wrote:
> Hi all, I've been happily doing my books in GNC for several years,
> and I
> would have said I'm pretty comfortable with the whole double entry
> system.
> However, I came across something yesterday and for some reason I
> can't get
> my head around it.
> 
> I have a PayPall "Asset" account (essentially the same as my bank
> accounts), I have an "Accounts Receivable" account, I have a
> customer, and
> an invoice.
> 
> PayPal takes a fee out of monies received.
> 
> I would like to make an entry that shows money received by paypal,
> have
> that entry applied to the invoice, thereby zeroing out the
> corresponding accounts receivable, and in the same transaction, as a
> split,
> show the paypal fee charged against "Office Expenses" (that's likely
> not
> the best description, but I figure it should work mathematically,
> even if
> it would be perhaps better to create a "Bank Fees" or even "PayPal
> fees"
> expenses category.
> 
> But when I try to do this, I seem to end up creating something bogus
> (and I
> know you probably want to know what I mean by that, but I don't
> really
> know--sometimes the transaction simply vanishes, sometimes it doesn't
> seem
> to wipe out the accounts receivable balance, I just get stuff I don't
> make
> sense of).
> 
> So, I guess I have a couple of questions. First, does my description
> of
> what I'm trying to do make sense, or is there something clearly bogus
> in
> the plan? If it's not the right way, is anyone willing to outline the
> accounts I should have, and what gets put where?
> 
> Thanks for any help!
> Cheers,
> Simon
> 
>