Macho, >From an accounting perspective, the interest charge is not incurred until the original invoice is overdue past the agreed date and should be recorded as such at that time, while the original sale is recorded at the date at which it occurred.
On this basis, I think it would be most appropriate to issue an additional invoice for the interest charges referencing the original invoice at the date those charges become applicable and then forward a copy of the original invoice along with the invoice for the interest charges to the customer. If the invoice remains outstanding, then you would have to periodically e.g monthly or quarterly send new invoices for the accruing interest charges. In mananging this for low value sales, the additional cost of issuing and mailing the additional invoice may outweigh any additional gain from the interest charge, so it may be wise to have a threshold in the sale value, above which you change the terms of sale to include the interest charge for late payment, or more simply, not pursue the interest charges for sales below an appropriate threshold while keeping the provision in the terms of sale. You may also need to consider any constraints on policy imposed by any consumer protection legislation which may apply. It would be interesting to compare the effectiveness of offering a discount for early payment with the imposition of an penalty interest (or using both) in encouraging prompt payment of invoices. Carrot or stick cf carrrot then stick? David Cousens ----- David Cousens -- View this message in context: http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Interest-late-penalties-on-invoices-tp4693055p4693057.html Sent from the GnuCash - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user ----- Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
