I am attaching supporting documents to transactions. In Fixed Assets I am able to attach supporting documents to the transaction of recently acquired assetts. However, Fixed Assets that were acquired before I started using Manager, there is no option to attach supporting documents. I am attempting to keep track of the proof of ownership documents and also any warranty documents that apply to the assets. Is there a method to add attachments to these earlier acquisitions? Can this feature be added?
How did you put a value the Fixed Asset purchased before the start date or are they fully depreciated?
Not sure that it is to be recommended but you could add a purchase transaction with a value of zero and attach the document to that.
As you have discovered, you can only attach files to transactions. I assume you entered original purchase cost and depreciation as of your start date via starting balances. (If you did not, that is what you should have done.)
My recommendation is to create a folder for fixed asset documentation and put everything in there. In fact, if you do that, you might find that to be a more convenient place for current asset documentation than to scatter it through all the purchase invoices or payments that apply to different assets. See the Guide: Manager Cloud.
Tut, as you surmised, these assets are the starting balance figures and were input as you described. The warranty information perhaps should be in 'Folders" for ease of recovery should they be needed. Starting balance figures create challenges for meeting the annual auditor’s requirements. Attaching the purchase documents to transactions is the cleanest method for proving the original values and dates and descriptions of assets. But drilling into reports and finding a huge percentage of the assets are not directly accountable creates additional work for the accountants and the auditors.
‘Folders’ may be the only option at this time, but that also presents challenges. How to structure the documents in ‘Folders’ when the starting balance figures are comprised of many many individual assets that are still in use. ‘Folders’ is a single level structure at this time, so attempting to organize hundreds of documents will present challenges to efficiently storing the documents and even more challenges to being able to locate the correct document at a later time. Fixed Assets is just one very large category of documents that would have to be added to ‘Folders’. We started with Bank Statements and Bank Reconciliation reports (which I appended to the Bank Statement before attaching to the Bank ‘Folder’. As that category of starting balance documents grew I began to see the single level forlder structure is going to become clumsy as the numebr of categories of documentation and the number of actual documents continues to grow.
Bank Reconciliation Reports are not transaction files as you clarified for me earlier. They exist only at the instance that the report is requested. So attachments to the report would never be a possibility. Starting Balances are fixed figures in a table? Perhaps at some point that table could be handled as a unique transaction register and allowing for attachment of important information. If that could be done, the problems related to proving for auditors the composition of assets that comprise the total figure, and what each individual asset is named, the problem becomes minimal.
Setting up a new accounting software has many challenges in learning the product. I believe the largest challenge to be the planning now for what the company’s books may become in ten years. The choices we make in the initial configurations may not be adjustable in future years. ‘Folders’ may be the only option at this time, but as the data grows ‘Folders’ becomes a problem of it’s own.
While starting balances behave as though this were true, they actually originate from different places. Accounts receivable and Fixed assets starting balances, for example, come from individual subsidiary ledgers. Starting balances of ordinary accounts come from automatic ledger entries generated when you set a starting balance under Settings. So the list of starting balances is, itself, more of a report of other transactions than a standalone table. As a result, I don’t think you will ever see it as a unique transaction register.
Remember also that starting balances are only dealt with once, at the point when you migrate from an earlier accounting system to Manager. So modifying the associated workflow would have little overall benefit.
The same would be true whether you stored scanned versions of documents in the regular file structure of your accounting system, attached them in Manager folders, or simply filed paper versions in a drawer. Your comment about planning ahead is definitely germane. My personal philosophy is that it is sometimes prudent not to work too hard to fold everything into a single application. If you’ve ever faced the difficulties of converting to a new accounting system because the old one became obsolete, you know that the fewer things you have to port to the new system the better. If the only way to access old records, as well as their documentary support, is via the same system, you might start to appreciate the idea of independent aspects of your overall records system.
Starting balance show as a “transaction” like record when drilling down on fixes assets purchased prior to the start date. It would provide a consistent interface if purchase documents could be attached to the starting balance record. The original tax invoice is a useful document (defining the details of what was purchased / is the fix asset) but if added by starting balance there is no transaction to attach it to.
Also allowing attachment at edit screens would be more intuitive as has been suggested by others.
And allowing attachment to other record types
Clearly as this thread describes there are other solution, and there are other issues with Manager which imo are more pressing. So really just expressing support for a low priority idea.