[GNC] Tracking UnPaid Bills

[David Cousens]

Then you would create asset accounts (an equivalent to the accounts
payable in business features) for rent owed. Again you could use sub-
accounts for each property to a fine a scale as needed. 

When the rent is due on a property you create an entry with a debit to
the appropriate  Asset:Rent Owed sub account and an credit entry to the
Income account (if it proved useful you could have a sub account
structure on the income as well). When a renter makes a payment you
credit the appropriate Asset:Rent Owed sub account and debit your bank
account. The balances in the Asset Rent Owed and its sub accounts  give
you the position re what is owed and by whom. Zero balances in the
appropriate RentOwed sub account indicate payments are up to date, a
debit balance that you are owed money and a credit balance that the
renter is in credit.

Appropriate searcheable tags in the description memo field can also be
used to differentiate different properties if you don't want to setup
sub accounts for example. The starting point is to define exactly what
it is you need for management purposes and then work back to the
appropriate combnation of tags and sub-accounts which will meet those
specific needs. 

The flexibility of the transaction report can usually allow you to
generate the reports you may require not covered by the standard
reports

Whether your accounting is on a cash or accrual basis relates more to
the timing of recording the various entries. If you are strictyl cash
accounting then the entry recording income would be made on the date of
receipt of a payment or partial payment for example.


The issue of club memberships has been covered many times in the
mailing list but approaches can be similar to the above.




On Thu, 2025-03-20 at 07:57 +1100, Doug via gnucash-user wrote:
> The only issue with this tracking for business use is that some can
> be income 
> related. I have an issue tracking rental property income: I need to
> work 
> out a way of only having rent payment as income (cash accrual), but
> being 
> able to generate reports that track rental payments with the property
> rent 
> required, so I can track rent arrears. There is also a need to track
> any 
> payments a renter might need to re-imburse.
>  I looked at using the invoicing system, but it was a step too far I
> felt, 
> as well as not melding with my cash accrual accounting. This
> requirement 
> also applies to clubs, etc that need to track memberships, etc.
>  Can anyone suggest a cash accrual method for tracking these
> payments? I
> have been looking for a system for years! 
> 
> regards, Doug in Australia, long time Gnucash user but no expert! &
> thanks 
> to Gnucash developers for commitment.
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 06:24:31 +1000
> David Cousens <davidcousens49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > You can always make the tracking of bills as fine scale as you need
> > by
> > creating a specific sub account strucure to the liability account
> > e.g
> > Liability-Utilities- Electricity
> >                    -Water
> >                    -Internet
> >          -Loans    -House 
> >                    -Car
> >    etc.
> > 
> > Then the liability subaccount with a non-zero balance contains
> > unpaid
> > bills (or overpaid) depending on whether it is a credit balance or
> > debit balance.
> > 
> > The advantage of the business features with invoices and bills is
> > that
> > the payments are linked specifically to the bill or invoice they
> > relate
> > to so it is possible to search for unpaid invoices.  
> > 
> > You could always use tags in the memo, description fields to create
> > this just using ordinary Liability accounts.
> > 
> > 
> > On Thu, 2025-03-20 at 06:30 +1100, flywire wrote:
> > > On Wed Mar 19 10:07:19 EDT 2025 griffin wrote:  
> > > > 
> > > > The transactions are working the way they are supposed to, so
> > > > thank
> > > > you everyone who contributed to this topic.  
> > > 
> > > So how do you propose actually tracking unpaid bills? Recording a
> > > transaction doesn't do it. It would normally involve specific
> > > reports
> > > run
> > > frequently enough to manage payments due.
> > > 
> > > Regards
> > >   
> > > >   
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