Future Dated Purchase

Feature Request
1

Hello,

I’m not sure if this has been requested before or is possible.

Would it be possible to created future dated purchase records?

Reason
I have a service led business and know upfront what some of my purchases will be. For example, if I need to get a friend with a van to deliver something for me for a job I have in a month’s time, I will book him to do this. However, I will not pay him until the date of the event and therefore would want the purchase date to be that date and not the date I raise the purchase.

At the moment I have to wait until the event date to raise the purchase, however it would be good to be able to do this in advance so that my Dashboard remains up to date.

Thanks,
Sachin

2

There are a few reasons why we don’t allow future dated invoices, one of which is due to the limitation we have with multiple currencies, i.e. not being able to project an exchange rate for a future date. Another problem is with the potential this has to distort annual reports in the way of accounting for income/expenditure that has not actually been realised.

I’m certainly open to discussion here, but I think there’s probably a better way to achieve this than allowing future dated invoices.

3

Maybe you could set these up as purchase orders? I know these won’t reflect on the dashboard, but at least it would be recorded.

4

Is it possible to enter a purchase for a future date at all? E.g. our rent we pay a month in advance so we have to pay it before we can enter it into QF which isn’t great.

5

Hi @ryansb

This isn’t possible at the moment. I’ve merged your post with the existing feature request thread.

6

It would be a “nice to have” for us to be able to have known major expenses showing in the dashboard before we make the actual purchase as a workaround I just create the purchase invoice when I get a verbal advice of costs and adjust as required when invoiced

@ryansb I don’t see how this fits you, if you have paid in advance then you have made the purchase.

7

I pay my rent for one month on the last working day of the preceding month. In order to attribute the correct annual rent amount to each accounting year I have set up a recurring purchase for the first of each month for the rent, and a bank auto-tagging rule for the payment that leaves my account as a payment on account to the landlord “supplier”. Then it’s just one extra click on the purchase to pay from credit on the 1st.

8

I think this is a needed feature too.

I note that QuickFile will allow me to create a Sales Ledger Invoice with a future date on it, but it won’t allow a Purchase Ledger entry with a future date, which is surely a contradiction?

My situation is that I have received invoices for renewal of webhosting services, where payment was taken in advance of the renewal date (automatically). I have an invoice showing a payment date and the invoice date, but the payment date (today) is a month before the listed invoice date on the invoice. So, QuickFile knows I have made a payment, but I can’t tell it why, as I can’t put the invoice in the system with the correct invoice date, as the system won’t let me put a future date on a Purchase Ledger entry.

My only option is to create a Purchase Ledger entry for today’s date, allocate it to the payment, and then remember to go back in and adjust the invoice date once that date is reached.

This all feels messy to me, and personally, I don’t think it should be possible to post a Sales Ledger Invoice to an account for a future date. There’s no reason why an invoice relating to a future activity can’t be created for today’s date, with the invoice details indicating the period it relates to.