[GNC] Tracking UnPaid Bills

Wed Mar 19 10:07:19 EDT 2025

So I think I've made a discovery.

For some reason things are working how they should, and when I went back 
over what I had done I realised that I turned off the setting "Reverse 
Balanced Accounts".

The trans actions are working the way they are supposed to, so thank you 
everyone who contributed to this topic.

On 2025-03-18 1:08 p.m., Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi.
>
> Please remember to CC gnucash-user on all replies...
>
> Define "overpaid".
>
> Going step-by-step:
>
> 1. Liability -> Expense    (e.g. you are billed for $50)
> 2. Bank -> Liability       (e.g. you over-pay $75)
> .. At this point, the Liability should say that they owe you!
> 3. Liability -> Bank       (e.g. They refund you $50)
> .. At this point, the Liability should be $0
>
> Of course, your situation might be different.
>
> -derek
>
> On Tue, March 18, 2025 2:51 pm, Griffin wrote:
>> I overpaid, so the liability is showing I owe. They send me a cheque to
>> zero out the balance, and send me a cheque that I bank.
>>
>> On March 18, 2025 11:22:34 a.m. MDT, Derek Atkins <derek at ihtfp.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>> You are doing something wrong.  So let me ask you a question:
>>>
>>> How does the refund work in real-life?
>>>
>>> My guess is that the refund is actually a "reduction of expense" --
>>> because it's coming from the Vendor directly.  It should probably not hit
>>> the liability account at all, unless the goal is the reduce the amount
>>> you
>>> owe to the vendor.  So either it is:
>>>
>>>   Expense -> Liability   (reducing how much you owe)
>>> or
>>>   Expense -> Bank  (they sent you a check and you deposited it).
>>>
>>> -derek
>>>
>>> On Tue, March 18, 2025 1:12 pm, griffin wrote:
>>>> Sorry, but I'm still having an issue with this process.
>>>>
>>>> Setting the bill value as a transfer from the expense account to the
>>>> liability account is working fine, as is paying off the liability from
>>>> the chequing account.
>>>>
>>>> However, dealing with a refund is still causing a problem.
>>>>
>>>> 1.) If I make a deposit into the chequing account from the liability
>>>> account, Gnucash makes the balance of the liability account go up, not
>>>> down towards zero. Making the value a negative number, only results in
>>>> the value moving to the other column (see the second point).
>>>>
>>>> 2.) If I make the transfer from the liability account in the decrease
>>>> column, setting the balance to zero, the transaction appears in the
>>>> chequing account as a withdrawal.
>>>>
>>>> This is all controlled by GnuCash. Am I doing something, or is GnuCash
>>>> doing something of which  I'm not aware.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2025-03-17 12:01 p.m., griffin wrote:
>>>>> I have been trying this, and I've hit a small issue.
>>>>>
>>>>> I made an over payment to my phone bill, and then moved to another
>>>>> carrier, so I was over paid in the liability account.
>>>>>
>>>>> When I tried to "refund" this overpayment to my chequing account
>>>>> GnuCash either doubles the liability, or withdraws the refund from the
>>>>> chequing account.
>>>>>
>>>>> (...and yes, I feed my dog Dog Foof!!!😳)
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't seem to be able to reduce the liability to zero, and increase
>>>>> the chequing account balance.
>>>>>
>>>>> What have I done wrong?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 2025-03-17 10:56 a.m., R Losey wrote:
>>>>>> On Sun, Mar 16, 2025 at 11:56 AM Michael or Penny Novack via
>>>>>> gnucash-user <
>>>>>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 3/16/2025 12:13 AM, R Losey wrote:
>>>>>>>> Hi. I'd just set such accounts up as sub-accounts under
>>>>>>>> Liabilities.
>>>>>>> Using
>>>>>>>> your example (electricity)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 1) Create an "Electricity" account under "Liabilites"
>>>>>>>> (alternatively, you
>>>>>>>> could use the provider as the name of the account
>>>>>>>> 2) Using your $120 bill as an example, when you pay $60 and owe
>>>>>>>> them $60,
>>>>>>>> you'd create a three-way split
>>>>>>>>           Checking: decrease (credit) $60
>>>>>>>>           Expenses->Utilities->Electricity: increase (debit) $120
>>>>>>>>           Liabilities->Electricity: increase (credit) $60
>>>>>>> You COULD do it that way. Splits when paying the bill.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But I suggested entering the expense/liability when the bill arrives
>>>>>>> with an effective date the due date of the bill. Then when you pay
>>>>>>> all
>>>>>>> or part of the bill, the transaction just liability/bank account. No
>>>>>>> split transactions involved. (well MAYBE no splits -- besides being
>>>>>>> billed for electricity might also have late fees and/or interest
>>>>>>> charges. You MIGHT just bundle those into electricity expense but
>>>>>>> also
>>>>>>> might instead might want to see how much you are being hit with late
>>>>>>> fees and interest on all your bills).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Michael D Novack
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Your suggestion is even better and simpler (no splits); I was trying
>>>>>>> to
>>>>>> think of how to do it the way you suggest, but somehow confused
>>>>>> myself and
>>>>>> couldn't figure out what the two transactions would look like. (I
>>>>>> don't
>>>>>> know what I was thinking; it's perfectly obvious today).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> If you need end-to-end encryption, I have a PGP Key
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
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>>>
>>> --
>>>        Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
>>>        derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
>>>        Computer and Internet Security Consultant
>>>
>
-- 
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