Combine bill and invoice in a single transaction

Question

I would like to combine some bills (that I need to pay) and some invoices (that I'm being payed) into a single transaction so that it is correct with my bank statement. Is this possible?

I work as an independent contractor, and the billing(?) company that pays me sends me a bill for their services, and then subtracts that bill from what they pay me so the actual transfer is the net transfer.

Example situation

I send them two invoices for 800 and 400 euro, and they send me bills for 100 and 50 euro. I entered all four into GnuCash as separate items (since they are).

Upon payment there is one transfer of 1050 euro to my bank account.

Current situation

I currently have combined the two invoices with the transaction, but now the second one is marked as unpaid (due to partial payment). I looks something like this:

description	account	deposit	withdrawal
invoice 001	debit	800
invoice 002	debit	250
payment	bank	1050

Desired situation

The statement would look something like this:

description	account	deposit	withdrawal
invoice 001	debit	800
invoice 002	debit	400
bill 001	credit		100
bill 002	credit		50
payment	bank	1050

How do I combine these bills and invoices so that the transaction is correct with the transfer to my bank account, and all bills/invoices are marked as payed?

(Apologies for any incorrect terms, I'm translating from Dutch)

Answer 1

What I suggest that you do is to firstly create invoices for the amounts that you want to receive (2 invoices in your example).

Now you need to deal with the amounts that your billing company wants to charge you for. In effect, these amounts will simply reduce the amount that you receive overall. I suggest that you enter them into GnuCash as Credit Notes.

To do this, open up your New Invoice window, and hit the radio button that will make a Credit Note instead of an Invoice -

Create as many credit notes as you need (2 in your example) against the same customer that you're sending your invoices to.

After you've created and posted your two invoices and two credit notes, your Accounts Receivable account will look something like this:

When you receive your single payment, go to the GnuCash Process Payment screen and enter the name of the billing company that is paying you. GnuCash will show a list of all of the current (unpaid) invoices and credit notes that refer to that company. Enter the net amount of the payment and manually select all of the invoices and credit notes that are covered by the payment:

Fill in the rest of the required details (bank account, etc) and press OK. Voila! GnuCash should create a number of entries in the Accounts Receivable account to show that the 2 invoices and 2 credit notes are finalised, and it will create a single entry in your bank account for the amount of the net payment.