Thank you for the reply. It leads me to further questions.
When you assign payment to the invoice, the existing transaction will
be overwritten with an entry in the account payable, and the split
will apply automatically in the AP.
This certainly matches what I observe in my GnuCash book, but it
certainly is not what I want to happen. Can you point me to further
documentation about what GnuCash intends to do when I assign a
transaction as payment? Or, can you point me to which parts of the code
I should read?
This also does not match what I took from the documentation. The GnuCash
manual, section 7.6. "Process Invoice Payment", says:
There is an alternative way of assigning a payment to (one or more)
invoices where the payment transaction already exists…. This can best
be done starting from the asset account register holding the imported
payment transaction (like your bank account). In that account, select
the payment, right-click ([two-finger]-click for |macOS|) and choose
*Assign as payment...*. The payment window will pop-up, partly filled
in with the information from the transaction. Fill in the missing
information like the proper customer and invoice to complete the payment.
This does not mention that the payment transaction will get rewritten,
and splits will get discarded.
It occurs to me that one workaround is that I enter the payment
transaction as if there were no service charges. Then I assign the
transaction as payment for the invoice, letting GnuCash rewrite it. Then
I modify the transaction to add the service charge and reduce the amount
deposited in my bank account.
Also, you advise:
You should create your three-split transactions in your invoice…
I am a bit surprised by this. Do you mean that I should I should list
the service charge from my payment processor as a credit in the invoice,
where the customer will see it? It seems to me that my customer won't
care, and does not need to know, details about the terms and feed of my
payment processor.
Implicit answers to my questions:
Q1. Is this the expected behaviour?
Apparently "yes".
Q2. What does the "Assign as payment" of a payment transaction to an
invoice actually do? The GnuCash manual, section 7.6. "Process
Invoice Payment", says what steps to take to perform an assignment,
but it does not explain what GnuCash does in the course of the
assignment. It does not lead me to believe that it will rewrite a
transaction, and discard splits.
Apparently the expected behaviour is for GnuCash to rewrite the payment
transaction.
These questions are still open:
Q3. What is the correct way to enter a transaction which pays an
invoice and incurs service fees? Should I always create the
transaction with "Process Payment…" from the business features if it
will eventually be part of an invoice payment? Is there a way to make
an existing transaction an invoice payment without losing what I put
into the transaction?
Q4. If I have an invoice marked PAID, how do I see which transactions
are assigned as the payments for that transaction?
Thank you for the help. I would be happy to have even more. And thanks,
as always, for the people who developed all these helpful business
features, even though I am quibbling about them now. Best regards,
—Jim DeLaHunt
On 2024-12-28 08:38, Jediator wrote:
You should create your three-split transactions in your invoice,
instead of doing this in the account register. When you assign
payment to the invoice, the existing transaction will be overwritten
with an entry in the account payable, and the split will apply
automatically in the AP. Hope this helps..
Cheers! --ND
On 12/27/24 10:09 PM, Jim DeLaHunt wrote:
Hi, folks:
I have used little bits of the business features of GnuCash for a
long time, but I don't know them well. I just tried to assign a
Paypal transaction as a payment, and it looks like GnuCash changed
the transaction in ways I don't understand.
I had an invoice for a customer. The invoice was posted, so my
accounts receivable account had an entry for that invoice.
The customer paid me using Paypal. Paypal deducted a service fee. I
entered a three-split transaction in GnuCash:
Debit $X Asset:Paypal account, where $X is the gross amount of the
invoice
Credit $Y Expense:Fees account, where $Y is the service fee
Paypal charged
Credit $(X-Y) Asset:Accounts Payable, where $X-Y is the net amount
received
I selected this transaction, brought up the context menu, and
selected "Assign as payment…". A dialogue appeared. It had the amount
$(X-Y) filled in, so I changed it to $X. It had the date of the
Paypal transaction. The invoice was in the Documents list in the
centre of the dialogue, so I selected that. I pressed the [OK] button.
Now, the transaction was changed. It had only two splits:
Debit $X Asset:Paypal account, where $X is the gross amount of the
invoice
Credit $X Asset:Accounts Payable
My split with $Y for the service fee was nowhere to be found. Also,
the Description for the transaction, and the Notes on each split,
were changed to just have the customer name.
Q1. Is this the expected behaviour?
Q2. What does the "Assign as payment" of a payment transaction to an
invoice actually do? The GnuCash manual, section 7.6. "Process
Invoice Payment", says what steps to take to perform an assignment,
but it does not explain what GnuCash does in the course of the
assignment. It does not lead me to believe that it will rewrite a
transaction, and discard splits.
Q3. What is the correct way to enter a transaction which pays an
invoice and incurs service fees? Should I always create the
transaction with "Process Payment…" from the business features if it
will eventually be part of an invoice payment? Is there a way to
make an existing transaction an invoice payment without losing what I
put into the transaction?
Q4. If I have an invoice marked PAID, how do I see which transactions
are assigned as the payments for that transaction?
I am using GnuCash 5.8 on macOS Sonoma 14.7.2. The transaction and
invoice in question were entered years ago, but I never bothered to
assign the payment to the invoice until now.
Colour me confused.
—Jim DeLaHunt
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