I'm not going to comment on "does that sound right?" The accounts used and workflow to temporarily convert accrual to cash are an accounting matter, not a gnucash matter. As for there not being a "setting", that make no sense. The difference between "cash" and "accrual" is LOGICAL (the timing when certain financial events are considered to have happened).

In other words, suppose you were keeping books on the "cash basis". You sold a customer some goods or services and sent them an invoice (maybe just typed one out). At this point, for legal purposes that amount IS a "receivable", and you could sue in court if the purchaser refused to pay (or say died -- you are asking the estate to pay). That you do not record this in the books as a "sale" until paid is besides the point.

Note also that whether you can freely choose to report on the cash basis or accrual basis or be forced to use one or the other may depend on the rules for your jurisdiction.

Michael D Novack


On 3/5/2024 12:34 AM, Blake Hannaford wrote:
Thank you all for helpful responses so far.   It is too bad that accrual vs
cash invoice accounting is not a setting.   At any rate I usually only have
a handful of outstanding invoices at a time.    I propose the following:

1) At end of year, figure out the total dollar amount of unpaid invoices.

2) Create a new Income account "unpaid sales"
3) Debit sales by the unpaid total and credit "unpaid sales"
4) Ideally see if "unpaid sales" can be omitted from the income statement
report.
5) Otherwise, manually subtract "unpaid sales" from Total income to get
income tax liability
6) At start of next year, keep "unpaid sales" but zero out all other income
accounts (transfer to year-end equity - my usual system for income and
expenses)
7) During the year, either move the total back to sales immediately or when
each invoice is paid, manually debit "unpaid sales" and credit "sales" for
that amount.

Does that sound right?
BH


--
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality 
of the grave.

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