GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 705309
A/R &A/P need warnings; Sales Tax Table and Billing Terms Editor need documentation
Last modified: 2018-06-29 23:18:01 UTC
In using the register view of a sub-account, I find that you provide a place for a due date, but I cannot find a way to access that field. What am I doing wrong?
Original title was "Cannot find way to access "due date" field" Occurs: You are trying to edit transactions in an account receivable or account payable. Usually you shouldn't do that. Did you read the chapters in our guide about Business Features [http://svn.gnucash.org/docs/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_bus_ar.html] ff.? The due date is calculated by the bill/invoice date and their selected entry of Business->Billing Terms Editor. DEVS: I am assigning this to documentation because 1. it seems not quite clear "You should usually not edit A/R or A/P accounts manually!". This should be noted in both, http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/accts-types1.html and http://www.gnucash.org/docs/v2.4/C/gnucash-guide/chapter_bus_ar.html 2. I am missing an explaination of the Billing Terms Editor and the Sales Tax Table editor. 3. Eventually we should improve the structure of the guide, marking billing term editor, [TBW] Sales Tax Table editor, [TBW] A/R, A/P as part "Business Features" [see bug 687820]
Forgot: "New entries to those accounts should only be done by * post/unpost bill/invoice/voucher or * process payment"
I have created a patch for the documentation updates for adding warnings to not manually edit AR or AP transactions. Note: I think this bugs version needs to be changed to 'git-maint' before merging.
Created attachment 306232 [details] [review] proposed patch
I'd like to re-open this bug as I'd like to document Billing Terms Editor and the Sales Tax Table editor also. I'm not sure how to reopen, so I'm making this comment to see if that does it for me...
It doesn't. You have to change "RESOLVED" to "REOPENED" at the bottom. You might not have the requisite privs, so I've done it.
Created attachment 311221 [details] [review] Document Billing Terms Editor and Tax Table Editor Also includes guide/C/figures/invest_dividendcash.png which is nothing to do with this bug but was found to need a minor dimension change when adjust-dpi was run. I note that this image appears too wide (goes right to RHS of page) when viewed in the previous Guide PDF. I don't have a full GnuCash build set up so I cannot test this new image but I think it will probably still be wrong using this new image. If some-one can suggest how to fix this, I'll try.
Created attachment 311222 [details] [review] Publish my Authorship
311221 applies correctly and looks OK, but I wonder if the "how to" bit with the illustration of the dialog boxes wouldn't be better in the Help manual, at least until we combine them. If not, then the expanded instructions should also be in the A/P setup page or that should have a "for details see" pointer back to A/R.
Hi John, I'm happy to make changes but I'm not sure I know what you mean by the "how to" bit or the "expanded instructions"? If you mean the actual sections for Billing Terms Editor and Tax Table Editor, I tried to make them the same except there are no screenshots in the Help, which is what I noticed in some of the other sections. In the Guide, the AP Tax Tables and Billing Terms have a link back to same sections in AR. Help is set up differently - there is an Initial Setup section (Accounts, Tax Tables, Company Registration & Billing Terms) which applies to both AR & AP. Has some-one committed to combining the Guide and Help? I think that is a good idea (but a big job). Regards, Chris Good
Chris, Yes, that's what I meant, in particular WRT the Company Info, which is in Help in chapter 10 and pointed to in chapter 7. It doesn't make sense to me to document that more than once. Help mentions the billing terms and tax table editors but doesn't explain them. As for organization, ISTM that since one needs to set up the account structure and company info once that there should be a "setup" chapter in section III that says to do it once and refers to Help Manual 10.3.3 for the details of entering the company info. Since different billing terms and tax tables may be required for AR and AP and may not be required at all mentioning them separately in each section does make sense, but I think describing the details of the editors belongs in help while the guide should go into more detail about what the terms and tax tables do and how they affect creating bills and invoices. In your patch the the AP Tax Tables and Billing Terms have links to the respective AR sections, but the Company Registration paragraph doesn't. No, nobody's committed to combining the two.
Sorry, I just noticed that your patch has changes to Help as well that adds instructions for the billing terms and tax tables. That's good, but I'd still prefer that there was only one instance of each.
Created attachment 311687 [details] [review] Patch 3 Guide New Intro + Setup chapters
Created attachment 311688 [details] [review] Patch 4 Dummy commit to remove renamed png files
Hi John, I've attached 2 extra patch files (that need to be added as well as the 2 previous uncommitted patches) that modify the Guide: 1) New chapter Business Introduction 2) New chapter Business Setup (includes ref to Help Manual 10.3.3 Business Preferences) 3) Moved relevant text from AR + AP sections to new chapters 4) Moved Depreciation chapter to after Other Assets chapter Hopefully this addresses most of your concerns above. Regards, Chris Good
I think I should also add to the Help business setup section, a ref to Help Manual 10.3.3 Business Preferences - I'll do that now.
Created attachment 311689 [details] [review] Patch 5 Help Bus Setup add ref to Pref, Business
Added Patch 5 as per previous comment.
Yes, I like that better. Committed and pushed.
Reassign version to 2.4.x so that individual 2.4 versions can be retired.
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