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 File → New File and proceed until you see the list of available accounts, select Business Accounts.

	Nota
	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 File → Properties → Business tab.

Tax Tables are maintained using the Sales Tax Table editor which is accessed via menu Business → Sales Tax Table . The following fields should be entered:

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 Sezione 10.3.3, «Business Book Options Tab» accessible from the File → Properties 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 Sezione 10.3.4, «Counters Book Options Tab».

Set options on the Business tab of the GnuCash preferences, which is accessed via Edit → Preferences ( GnuCash → Preferences on macOS). See Sezione 10.2.3, «Impresa».

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).

Nota

As of GnuCash 2.6.7, Billing terms are only partially supported. Date due is calculated but discount amount is not. Discount for early invoice payment is not implemented. There are 2 ways this may be done, although neither is recommended, and professional advise should be used to confirm that regulations are being complied with: After creating and posting a payment which pays the invoice in full, manually edit the payment transaction (usually strongly discouraged) and split the payment to reduce it by the amount of the discount and a create a compensating split in an income (discount) account. Alternatively, after creating and posting a payment for the discounted amount, create a credit note for the discount using a specific negative sales income (discount) account for the transfer account.

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 Business → Billing Terms Editor . The following fields should be entered: