[17.9.0] Added 3 new tabs in relation to bank & cash accounts

[sharpdrivetek]

read this topic [17.8.3] Added "Bank Accounts" tab

[EugeneC]

Thank you lubos!

[erik]

Thanks @lubos!

[y.ayemyat]

How to reset the auto numbers for receipts and payments

[ShaneAU]

@y.ayemyat

How to reset the auto numbers for receipts and payments

I don’t believe this is possible. It checks all numbers used so far and adds one to the highest integer that it finds.

[dalacor]

Point one: I do not use bank reconciliation or import bank statements as I don’t have a lot of transactions, so I will continue to use Transfer Money if this is the correct approach? However, will this show as a transaction on the bank transactions tab? I am assuming that I don’t need to use Inter Account Transfers if I am using Transfer Money. When I am going through my bank statement online - I don’t want to have to compare my transactions in the Bank Account Tab and then have to switch to a new Tab for transfers between Bank Accounts?

Having said that, having a separate tab to compare withdrawls and deposits against bank withdrawl slips and deposits could be handy.

In short, I am not clear on reading the notes under what circumstances one should be using Money Transfer and when one should be using Inter Account Transfers and what the ramifications are for using either option.

Point Two: The problem that I am seeing with making a Bank Account Tab where all you can do is add or delete Bank Accounts is this means that you have a Tab that effectively takes up space and is for the most part never used or used once every 5 years or something. Most Businesses do not open new bank accounts ever really! The secondary problem is that if you have a Bank Account and a Cash Account this makes two Tabs that are never used. What you see in bank account, you can see by clicking on the account on the summary page anyway - so I don’t see the need for the tab to be honest. It’s less clicks to click on the account on the summary page.

Option One: Would it not be possible to combine the Cash Account and Bank Account Tabs into one tab called Money or something and you can create/delete Cash and Bank Accounts there.

Option Two: Would it not be possible to enable users to re-order the tabs so that Tabs like Bank Account which will most likely be used once and never again can be moved to the bottom of the Tab List.

Option Three: My preferred option is to move the Bank Account and Cash Account Tabs to Settings on the grounds that they are the same concept as Business Details. You setup the account once and then you usually never need to access it again. I don’t see the point in a tab that shows you have three bank account and then you never use that tab again for the next ten years!

[lubos]

@dalacor

I do not use bank reconciliation or import bank statements as I don’t have a lot of transactions, so I will continue to use Transfer Money if this is the correct approach? However, will this show as a transaction on the bank transactions tab? I am assuming that I don’t need to use Inter Account Transfers if I am using Transfer Money. When I am going through my bank statement online - I don’t want to have to compare my transactions in the Bank Account Tab and then have to switch to a new Tab for transfers between Bank Accounts?

I think everyone should do bank reconciliation. There is simply no excuse for not doing it even if you have just one transaction per month. And bank reconciliation is accessible from Bank Accounts tab so it’s certainly not a tab which would be accessed rarely. The current design assumes bank accounts tab will be used often because of bank reconciliation (if not for other things).

If you are entering transactions manually, then you have two options to create transfers:

• Either use clearing method where you create 2 transactions separately under each bank/cash account and make them offset using some clearing account (this is usually done automatically when importing using bank rules)
• Or use Inter Account Transfers which is 1 transaction that will affect two bank/cash accounts.

Both methods will deliver the same results. It depends on your workflow which one suits you more. For you it seems Inter Account Transfers is the way to go.

If you are entering bank transactions manually, then the best way will be to go to Bank Accounts tab and click on statement figure which will show all transactions. The buttons to create new transactions are currently missing but they will be re-added. This should be your data-entry screen to add new transactions off the bank statement as you will be able to create payments, receipts or transfers from single screen and monitor running totals.

@dalacor

The problem that I am seeing with making a Bank Account Tab where all you can do is add or delete Bank Accounts is this means that you have a Tab that effectively takes up space and is for the most part never used or used once every 5 years or something. Most Businesses do not open new bank accounts ever really! The secondary problem is that if you have a Bank Account and a Cash Account this makes two Tabs that are never used. What you see in bank account, you can see by clicking on the account on the summary page anyway - so I don’t see the need for the tab to be honest. It’s less clicks to click on the account on the summary page.

I suspect you will be using Bank Accounts tab often.

@dalacor

Would it not be possible to combine the Cash Account and Bank Account Tabs into one tab called Money or something and you can create/delete Cash and Bank Accounts there.

As I have argued previously, both tabs are going to look different and merging them is going to look bad. There have been people arguing before why there are tabs Customers and Suppliers… why not just have Contacts tab. And once you have Contacts tab, it could also contain employees, expense claim payers… then you end up with this tab which contains everything and is basically meaningless.

@dalacor

Would it not be possible to enable users to re-order the tabs so that Tabs like Bank Account which will most likely be used once and never again can be moved to the bottom of the Tab List.

There are many accountants using Manager too. They don’t access just one business. They might hop between dozen of businesses daily. They need tabs to be in consistent order so they click on tabs without thinking where they are. This is why “reordering” or “renaming” of tabs hasn’t been implemented.

@dalacor

My preferred option is to move the Bank Account and Cash Account Tabs to Settings on the grounds that they are the same concept as Business Details.

This is something I was considering myself very early on. In the end I decided any sub-account which is holding a balance should be a tab. This is how Inventory Items is a tab while Non-inventory Items is an option under Settings.

This rule is broken when it comes to expense claims payers which are sub-accounts holding balance but tucked into Settings tab. One day this will be resolved too.

I think your main complaint (bank accounts and cash accounts tabs will be rarely used) is premature. You will need to wait and see that it is not the case.

So instead of speculating, let’s just concentrate on whether new layout makes it more difficult for you to use Manager and let’s resolve those issues.

[dalacor]

I will concede your point about Bank Reconciliation making the bank Tab more useful and also that I should perhaps start using it. I have never used it because initially I was never sure how to use it and now that I have been doing the statements manually for the last couple of years, I sort of have got into the habit of doing it that way. I will make an attempt at doing bank reconciliation the next time I am doing my accounts. I am assuming that I can make bank reconcilation start from 31st Agust 2017 instead of when I started using Manager?

One point that I would like to highlight is the introduction of Inter Account Transfers versus Transfer Money - in a years time, a new user would quite rightly be confused as to what the real difference is as they work slightly differently and the transaction view may be slightly different depending on whether you are doing bank reconciliation or manually comparing statements? I wonder if it would not be better to remove one option and only have one way to transfer money between accounts? I will have to play with both options and see which one works for me as I don’t really understand the difference between the two.

I will wait and see how the tabs develop before suggesting merging again as I don’t know what the future holds. Thanks for your feedback on the points I raised.

[lubos]

@sharpdrivetek

though it is a step forward to identify the inter account transfers easily, i believe this should have been just an extra feature. the transaction made between a bank account and a cash account is by withdrawal from the bank or by deposit to the bank. either way it is still a bank or cash transaction which should show in the statement. so why is this transaction removed from Manager now? Manager does not show this transaction now in Bank or Cash transactions. Previously it was easier to manually cross-check the transactions with the bank statement. now omitting these transactions just makes it more difficult.

First of all, I don’t think everybody should be using Inter Account Transfers. If you are importing all your bank statements, you would categorize all your transfers into some clearing account using bank rules. So it’s nice to be able to disable Inter Account Transfers if they are not relevant to your workflow.

Now, why inter account transfers don’t show under bank/cash transactions tabs? When you create new transfer which is between cash account and bank account, is it bank transaction, cash transaction or both? It’s really both but that would break the consistency where one entry increases counter in two different tabs. It’s just better to isolate these special entries in its own tab.

If you want to manually cross-check the transactions with the bank statement, go to Bank Accounts tab, then click on statement balance figure which contains transactions sorted by “clear date”. Bank Transactions and Inter Account Transfers tabs show transactions by transaction date which might be different from the clear date (the date it has been effective on bank statement).

@sharpdrivetek

Also, now the Bank Accounts and Cash Accounts tab do not have any frequent use sitting on the left pane as they just show the number of accounts under them and their balance. though the emphasis have been always to improve the features of Manager, there has been no emphasis on a user-friendly UI.

I always put emphasis on user-friendly UI. But there is a conflict. People consider system to be user-friendly when it behaves the way they expect. So naturally, existing users of Manager won’t consider any change in the system user-friendly because it breaks their expectations until they got used to those changes.

[lubos]

@dalacor

I am assuming that I can make bank reconcilation start from 31st Agust 2017 instead of when I started using Manager?

You can reconcile as of any date. If your statement balance in Manager agrees with closing balance on your bank statement, you are considered reconciled with no further questions asked. It’s not bullet-proof approach but good enough with minimal effort.

[Abeiku]

I haven’t tried it yet but sounds like the bank and cash functions have been advanced greatly

[sharpdrivetek]

@lubos

If you want to manually cross-check the transactions with the bank statement, go to Bank Accounts tab, then click on statement balance figure which contains transactions sorted by “clear date”.

this is something i did not check the first time. i checked only the Bank and Cash Transactions where i did not find the transfer entry. Now it is clear to me. Thanks.

@lubos

I always put emphasis on user-friendly UI. But there is a conflict. People consider system to be user-friendly when it behaves the way they expect. So naturally, existing users of Manager won’t consider any change in the system user-friendly because it breaks their expectations until they got used to those changes.

this is true. but considering the features being added to Manager there should be a way to get everything shown on a compact screen. Mine being a manufacturing business i have most of the tabs active. say i want to make a purchase order, purchase invoice, production order, check the inventory, etc, every time i have to scroll the page. if there was a way i could re-arrange the tabs even, i would not find it such a difficult task. or maybe group the tabs according to Purchase, Sales, Production, Accounting, etc.

[Tut]

@sharpdrivetek

maybe group the tabs according to Purchase, Sales, Production, Accounting, etc.

They already are ordered that way:

• Tabs related to bank and cash transactions, ending with expense claims (as the least connected to the business’ accounts
• Tabs related to sales, beginning with Customers and ending with delivery notes
• Tabs related to purchases, beginning with Suppliers and ending with debit notes
• Tabs related to inventory, ending with production orders
• Tabs related to employees and payroll
• Tabs related to billable time and expenses
• Tabs related to assets
• Capital accounts
• Special accounts
• Journal entries
• Miscellaneous (folders, reports, settings)

Tabs assumed to be used most frequently are first in the list

[sharpdrivetek]

by group i meant sub-menus like a drop-down menu. sorry if i was not clear with my explanation.

[nick1973]

This is all fantastic development, however a suggestion. Currently if you want to set up a recurring Sales Invoice you have to go into Settings and then click Recurring Sales Invoices. This isn’t a problem once you know it’s there, but I did struggle to find it. It would be easier to have a tab under Sales invoices for Recurring Invoices, and perhaps it would be good to have the option to easily switch from standard invoice to recurring invoice when creating an invoice.

[Abeiku]

Quick access is nice but I think where it is currently puts an internal control layer on recurring sales invoice.
A normal user with sales invoice access may not be a user the company want to enable for creating recurring sales invoices.

[Brucanna]

@nick1973

Currently if you want to set up a recurring Sales Invoice you have to go into Settings and then click Recurring Sales Invoices.

This is not correct. You can setup a recurring sales invoices from within a sales invoice in view mode.

(Not sure if the related Guide mentions this)

[Tut]

@Brucanna

Not sure if the related Guide mentions this

This one does: https://www.manager.io/guides/7262. A link to it is available under Learn how to ... under the Sales Invoices tab. I will edit this guide to mention it, too.

[nick1973]

Yes I realised that after posting

It would still be good to have a tab in the left navigation to go to recurring sales invoices in one click as well as having it there.