To set up GnuCash to handle accounts receivable and accounts payable for a company the following
preliminary steps must be done.
There are many different ways to set up a business account hierarchy. You can start with the
Business Accounts setup which is available from the New Account Hierarchy assistant, or you
could build one manually. To access the prebuilt Business Accounts, start GnuCash and click on
→ (Strg+N)
and proceed until you see the list of available accounts, select Business
Accounts.
 | Anmerkung |
|---|---|
The prebuilt Business Account hierarchy will not meet your needs exactly. You will need to make adjustments for the hierarchy to function well with your particular situation. It should be close enough that it is recommended you begin with it. | |
Tax Tables can used to determine the tax for customer invoices (or vendor bills).
A tax table can be assigned to an invoice line or bill line.
The default invoice line tax table can be assigned to each customer and the default bill line tax table can be assigned to each vendor.
The default tax table for new customers or new vendors can be specified in the Book Options window which can be accessed by → (Strg+N) Business tab.
Tax Tables are maintained using the Sales Tax Table editor which is accessed via menu → . The following fields should be entered:
Name This is the tax table name.
Type Either Percent % or Value $.
ValueThis is the percentage or value depending on Type.
Account This is the account to which tax will be posted. For tax collected from customers, this should probably be a Liability account as it must be payed to the government. For tax paid to vendors, if tax laws allow tax paid to vendors to offset tax collected from customers, this should probably also be a Liability account (even though it will usually have a debit balance) so that the net tax owed to the government can be easily observed.
If you set up Tax on Purchases and Tax on Sales as subaccounts of Liabilities:Tax then the net tax will be rolled up and can be seen in the
GnuCashAccounts tab.If unsure about tax law requirements, get professional advice.
After you have built the account structure and defined your tax tables, register the GnuCash file as
belonging to your company by filling in the data requested in the
Abschnitt 10.2.3, „Reiter Geschäft“ accessible from the
→ (Strg+N)
menu item.
Define the format and last used numbers of codes such as customer, invoice, vendor, bill, employee, expense voucher, job number and order. See Abschnitt 10.2.4, „Reiter Nummern-Zähler“.
Set options on the Business tab of the GnuCash preferences, which is accessed via
→
(
→ →
on macOS). See Abschnitt 10.1.3, „Geschäft“.
Billing Terms can be used to determine the payment due date and be a guide for determining discount for early payment of invoices (or vendor bills).
| Anmerkung |
|---|---|
As of Discount for early invoice payment is not implemented. There are 2 ways this may be done, although neither is recommended, and professional advice should be used to confirm that regulations are being complied with:
| |
You can specify the billing terms on each invoice/bill. Invoice billing terms will default from the customer billing terms. Bill billing terms will default from the vendor billing terms.
Billing Terms are maintained using the Billing Terms Editor which is accessed via menu → . The following fields should be entered:
Name The internal name of the billing term. For some examples of billing term names and descriptions see https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Payment_Terms
Description The description of the billing term, printed on invoices
There are 2 types of billing terms, with different information to be entered
Type Days
Due Days The invoice or bill is due to be paid within this number of days after the post date
Discount Days The number of days after the post date during which a discount will be applied for early payment
Discount % The percentage discount applied for early payment
Type Proximo
Due Day The day of the month bills are due
Discount Day The last day of the month for the early payment discount
Discount % The discount percentage applied if paid early
Cutoff Day The cutoff day for applying bills to the next month. After the cutoff, bills are applied to the following month. Negative values count backwards from the end of the month.