Accounts Payable on Summary Page cancelling out equal debit/credit

[dalacor]

If you pay the wrong supplier (in Manager) for an invoice say £50, and you have no other outstanding payments, then the summary page accounts payable will show a balance of zero because Supplier A is owed £50 and Supplier B has been paid £50 even though they have not been invoiced for anything. So this balances out to zero even though you still owe a supplier

Yes Purchase Invoices does show one invoice unpaid. However, most people will use accounts payable on summary page to see if there are any outstanding invoices. I don’t go into sales invoices and purchase invoices to view incoming and outgoing amounts. I use the accounts receivable and accounts payable on the summary page as this is more efficient.

I think that accounts payable amount on summary page should ignore negative amounts (money paid before invoice creation) and only show positive amounts (invoices still outstanding) - i.e reflect what you actually need to pay!

[AJD]

@dalacor

I think that accounts payable amount on summary page should ignore negative amounts (money paid before invoice creation) and only show positive amounts (invoices still outstanding) - i.e reflect what you actually need to pay!

I don’t think that you have thought this through!

What about genuine negative (DR) balances in accounts payable ( overpaid invoice, or credit received after payment made)

What about the accounting equation A=L+E. The balance sheet would become an Unbalanced Sheet

[dalacor]

It would depend on what you are trying to achieve with the value of accounts payable on the summary page. What I am suggesting will not delete over payments or credits, you can still drill down and see what you have overpaid.

My suggestion focuses purely on one point. You are a business owner looking at your summary page. You will want to know how much you have to pay suppliers. This will remain the same regardless of over payment to another supplier, credits etc. If you owe money to a supplier you should be able to see it on the summary page as this is the page used by business owners to see what accounts are due.

I appreciate your point about accounting equation A=L+E however people don’t use the summary page to do tax returns etc. This indicates a design flaw of the summary page as it effectively mirrors the COA. Now that I think about it, this discussion (which you yourself participated in) was covered in the post below.

I would suggest bringing back the Accounts Payable information that was lost some years ago - See post which includes an even older post I think that this would resolve this post and address my issues in the previous posts linked.

Summary Page enhancement request

I was very happy with the original Summary Page, but once the New Summary Page had sub accounts and control accounts implemented, I ended up being very pleased with the new summary page design as it took up a lot less space and showed all company information in one view with the ability to drill down and really works well. However, I still believe that the the new summary page really does need a current, 30, 60 and 90 days overdue view for receipts and payments because this is information that …

[Ealfardan]

Yes, but the summary page is a balance sheet which will not tie-in if you drop the negatives.

[eko]

I think the issue here is that some prefer a Dashboard as for example Wave Accounting that shows you some status of financial performance and some prefer the current summary which gives you at a glance overview of balance sheet and profit and loss and let’s you dig in straight via the amout links to overviews. Both are valuable and once some kind of configurable dashboard with graphics and stuff (people need to be able to select what they want to see) is developed one should be able to select their preference of “home screen” i.e. the current summary page or the dashboard page. I do not think that the current page summary should change much as it has proven handy for its purpose, while probably the need over time to establish a dashboard, as I think has been discussed would greatly benefit the usability of manager as well. So it is ++ rather than either or.

By the way, what atracted me to Manager was that at one glance whenever opening the program I could see what is most important for a business, a running balance sheet and profit and loss account. So what we own, what we owe and how we perform and undrstanding the relationship from scratch between the two. It is its unique selling point and @Lubos and whoever helped him to take this approach should be complimented, notwithstanding that adding ome tools such as graphical presentations as in dashboards as mentioned before would make it stand-out even more and would help with what actions to prioritize, which I think is the point made here.

[dalacor]

yes this is the key point that I made in my other post (that I linked). The summary page is currently a balance sheet. But should it be? What is the purpose of a summary page? Quite a few users find the aged payables and receivables (that used to be on the summary page) quite useful. So surely some way should be found to bring this back without messing up the rest of the balance sheet view on the summary page. See linked post for that lengthy discussion.

Bringing back the aged payables would also have addressed the exact problem raised in this post.

[dalacor]

I don’t want a graphical dashboard. I agree with Lubos - it is bloats the program, is very inefficient use of space and does not actually provide more information. What the current summary page has works very well.

All I am suggesting is ++ - where we add the aged receivabled and aged payables to the summary page without messing up the balance sheet aspect. This would make a lot of users who miss the aged payables/receivables very happy and also resolve this particular issue.

I don’t think we need to change much and I am not proposing adding a dashboard. I think that is unnecessary. The only thing that the current summary page is missing is the aged payables/receivables. Everything else on a dashboard page (that is actually useful not eye candy) is already on the Manager summary page.

What would you propose adding to this graphical dashboard that is not currently available in Manager’s B/S and P&L view.

[Joe91]

When was the Aged Receivables on the Summary page?

[eko]

I have expressed several times, even here that I am happy with the summary. However to get more insight in the data an additional type of visualization (not in the summary page!) can also aim to provide more direction on what to do. I mentioned configurable as not all options are what people would like to see. I will use Wave and ODOO accounting as examples of a Dashboard that include graphical and tabular information about the following:

• WAVE Line graphic (12 or 24 months), monthly: Cash Flow: Cash coming in and going out of your business with inflow, outlfow and net-change.
• WAVE Line graphic (12 or 24 months), monthly: Profit And Loss: Income and expenses only (includes unpaid invoices and bills).
• WAVE Table: Payable & Owing: see screenshot below:

• WAVE Table: Net Income: see screenshot below:

*WAVE Circle diagram: Expense Breakdown: see screenshot below:

WAVE’s dashboard is not configurable and I find it confusing, but some of the graphics are useful and also the tables that focus on actionable items are. As mentioned I would not like this on my homepage but some may prefer it.

ODOO: The screenshots below are selfexplanatory:

[Ealfardan]

@dalacor

All I am suggesting is ++ - where we add the aged receivabled and aged payables to the summary page without messing up the balance sheet aspect. This would make a lot of users who miss the aged payables/receivables very happy and also resolve this particular issue.

That would be really handy

[dalacor]

Prior to January 2016. See post below for what old summary page looked like

Feedback on New Summary Page Look

@lubos I have installed the latest version of Manager on my laptop and I can see that the summary page pretty much mirrors the chart of accounts layout and design concept. I will be honest and say that I think that the new chart of accounts look actually is a better design as it mirrors profit and loss and balance sheet more and in that area is more relevant, so I can the point of aligning the summary page with the chart of accounts for the sake of consistency. Could I suggest a compromise for…

[dalacor]

See I am not asking much!

[dalacor]

Yes I see your point now about wanting a separate dashboard page. Cash Flow is very important and is something that needs to be completed in Manager, but not something you need on your summary page.

I think what is required is something in between reports (which are static periods) and the live summary page which is an overview of everything. Maybe the reports need to be beefed up as others have complained that they are quite basic. I only really use the VAT Calculation Worksheet and the Budget report (although this is not adequate).

But I think the bigger problem is the reports are static date periods when in reality for certain things like cash flow, Profit and Loss - what you want is a rolling 12/24 month period view. So you are always looking at the last 12 months whether it’s January or June today! Or maybe it’s recommended best practice to view this based on your financial year? I don’t know. I just know that I don’t really use the reports because I don’t feel that most of them provide me with the information I need to help me understand what I need to know.

My personal experience of running my own business has left me concluding that what I need is cash flow (past), cash flow forecasting (future) and an annual live budget. But I don’t need any of these on the summary page unless they can be put above the existing summary page, so you have three columns with a graph in each for cash flow, cash flow forecasting and budget and below that - completely separately the B/S and P&L. Hell you could even put the aged receivables and payables in a fourth column above the existing summary page.

Cash Flow (past), Cash flow forecasting (future), Budgets and Aged receivables/payables are essential Dashboard items for every single business big or small, because they need to be live (not static dates), but are not generally needed on the summary page, which I think should remain as an overview of the financial state of the business - i.e the COA - with the possible exception of aged receivables/payables which strictly speaking should form part of the summary overview.

So yes I agree with you that some of this should be added as a separate section. The problem with other programs like Odoo is the sheer amount of stuff that they have got taking up a lot of screen space, most of which you will never use. We don’t want Manager to end up repeating that mistake. I find it illogical to have a view/new/report column on the dashboard. You are repeating the word invoice (etc) three times. Clutters the screen, but doesn’t really add much information or any information at that point. Manager in my opinion accomplishes this far more elegantly, but allowing drill down etc.

Lubos does need to add a dashboard section (perhaps similar to what I suggested), whilst being careful not to fall into the trap of adding stuff that most people won’t use - as has happened to most other accounting programs where a lot of retail space is wasted with information that is not really usable.

Lubos has already commented on this some years back - see this post. Graphs in Summary view

What actionable items would you suggest adding to the dashboard?

[AJD]

@dalacor

Now that I think about it, this discussion (which you yourself participated in) was covered in the post below.

Sure, I have supported different formats for the launching page of Manager in the past, but I have never supported (and never will support) a format that compromises the underlying integrity of the data, which would occur if the suggestion in your first post in this thread was adopted.

[dalacor]

Yes the discussion has moved on from my original suggestion. I am in agreement that altering the B/S figures is not a good idea. My next suggestion was to bring back the aged payables/receivables and put that somewhere on the summary page perhaps above the B/S and P&L or change the summary page so it’s not just a B/S and P&L. The point of the summary page is to be a summary page and aged payables is part of the operating view for any business.

The focus has always been on whether you can change the summary page which happens to be a B/S and P&L. The focus should be on whether the B/S and P&L meets the needs of a summary page from a business operational point of view and the lack of aged payables/receivables suggests no.