[freeside-devel] cust_pay and sql-ledger

[ivan]

On Fri, Mar 02, 2001 at 10:38:36AM -0500, Jeff Finucane wrote:
> Kristian Hoffmann <khoff at pc-intouch.com>:
> 
>    Thank you for your message reply of Thu, 1 Mar 2001 22:11:40 -0800 (PST)....
> 
> +----------
> | Mailing-List: contact ivan-freeside-devel-help at sisd.com; run by ezmlm
> | From: Kristian Hoffmann <khoff at pc-intouch.com>
> | To: ivan-freeside-devel at sisd.com, jeff at cmh.net
> | In-Reply-To: <20010228184637.4DD5632E5D at cmheleu.cmh.net>
> | Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.20.0103012159310.13115-100000 at garak.pc-intouch.com>
> | Subject: Re: [freeside-devel] cust_pay and sql-ledger
> | 
> | What do you mean by unapplied payments?  Anything i can think of is
> | already handled by bills, payments, and credits.
> | 
> | On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, Jeff Finucane wrote:
> | 
> | >   I recall mention of possible sql-ledger integration discussed a few 
> | > months ago.  What has occurred there?

I suggested some changes to SQL-Ledger to the author, to provide an API
interface in SQL-Ledger.  We have a pre-release version of SQL-Ledger with
a programmatic API and I believe Jason has been spending a little time on
the first integration steps.  If you need it sooner then you can of course
help out :)

> | >   I am thinking that it would be appropriate to add another amount
> | > field to the cust_pay records to faciliate 'unapplied payments'
> +----------

At the ISP where Freeside originated, the billing system it replaced had
such an "unapplied payment" field.  It was apparantly an accounting no-no,
becuase it was specifically requested that this not be permissable.

>   Imagine that a customer arrives on ones doorstep with $239.40 cash.  This
> customer has in hand an invoice that should have been paid three days ago
> for six months of service at $19.95 per month.  They would like to continue
> being billed at six month intervals, but want to pay for the whole year now.
> 
>   I need to stick the extra $119.70 somewhere.  The future invoice does not
> yet exist.  Yes, I could create one, and then possibly make adjustments in
> the future when the customer also changes their services.
> 
>   Why not simply record the payment?  If the payment record (cust_pay) had
> two amount fields (just as cust_bill and cust_credit do), then one might
> record the total amount of the payment in the 'paid' field.  The second
> 'unapplied' field could be used to apply remaining amounts to later invoices.
> 
>   How else might this situation be handled?

Good question.  I'd be very interested in answers from an accountant
or someone with more accounting knowledge than I.

Freeside will integrate with SQL-Ledger for invoicing in the future; 
perhaps that might be a (longer-term) solution to your problem. 

-- 
meow
_ivan