GnuCash has an integrated accounts receivable system.
To use GnuCash’s integrated accounts receivable system, you must first set up Accounts
Receivable accounts of type A/Receivable under
Assets to accrue income you're owed. It is within this account that the
integrated A/R system will place transactions, debiting it when you post bills and crediting
it when you receive payments.
Example 7.1. Basic A/R Account Hierarchy
-Assets
-Accounts Receivable
-Checking
-Income
-Sales
-Liabilities
-Tax
-Tax on Purchases
-Tax on Sales | Important |
|---|---|
If you deal with customers in more than one currency you will need a separate Accounts Receivable account for each currency: -Assets
-Accounts Receivable
-CHF
-EUR
:
| |
 | Note |
|---|---|
You need to add additional asset, expense, and income accounts to this hierarchy for it to be useful. The important aspects of this hierarchy are the use of an income account and the Accounts Receivable asset account, with account type set to A/Receivable. | |
The transactions generated by the A/R system are recorded within the Accounts
Receivable account. You generally do not work directly with this account. You
generally work with the four integrated GnuCash A/R application components available through the
→
sub-menu. These four components are:
- Section 7.3, “Customers”
People or companies to whom you sell products or services on credit.
- Section 7.4, “Invoices”
The physical invoice you send to a customer to request payment. This invoice contains an itemized list of things you sold.
- Section 7.5, “Customer Jobs”
Is where you register Customer Jobs. Jobs are a mechanism by which you can group multiple invoices to a particular customer.
- Section 7.6, “Process Invoice Payment”
Used to register payments you received from a customer.
The following sections introduce the individual components in more detail.