I’m afraid I have got myself hopelessly confused.
I have imported a couple of months of bank statements, my customers, and added about 90 sales invoices using invoice numbers from another system. I am working on the period July 2013 - June 2104.
When I try to receive money so that my invoices show as being paid, I wind up with two credits in my bank statement.
Can someone shed light on what I am doing wrong here?
If you imported bank statements, those receipts were created automatically. When you Receive Money, you created them again. Do one or the other, but not both.
I wonder why you are trying to recreate the old records. Once you have set a start date for Manager, you can simply enter opening balances for all accounts as of that date.
Thanks Tut,
I worked out what I was doing wrong, which was to choose an account for each invoice instead of letting them default to accounts receivable and choose the invoice within the bank account for each credit.
I was trying to do what I have done previously in another accounting package which didn’t import bank statements and everything had to be entered manually.
Now that I’m on to that and my invoices are showing as paid, I’m really starting to love this system.
Tut,
I am having the same issue here and don’ t know how aminton fixed it.
When I import the bank statement I can see all the credit and debit entries to the bank account. Its easy enough to assign payments I have made (say ‘motor tax payment’ to the ‘vehicle expenses account’) but I don’t see the way to connect payments received to an invoice unless I ‘receive money’ for the invoice and this leaves a second credit in the bank account. I could just delete the bank statement imported entry but that is not the right way to do this I suspect. Any help appreciated.
Thank you
When you import the bank statement which includes payments from customers, click edit next to those transactions. What you will see is exactly the same as the Receive Money screen.
On the Account line select Accounts Receivable + Customer + Invoice (optional)
Brucanna,
Thank you so much. Sorted now
To be clear, @jsecuremanacc, if you have already entered a receipt for the invoice and then import your bank statement, you will have a duplicate entry; one must be deleted. This is a negative aspect of importing bank statements. Either you must delete a bunch of entries or live with outdated income and Accounts receivable records until the statement date.
Most bank account data can be downloaded daily, weekly or any other ad hoc period you may select so you can easily be up to date. You are not restricted to the notional implication of the wording Bank Statement.
One of the big advantages of importing bank statements for me is that you don’t have to do endless bank reconciliations - my cash account transactions “always” match the bank account transactions without fault.
All true, assuming availability of frequent statement downloads. Surprisingly, there are still some banks providing either no download capability or only coinciding with old-fashioned paper statements.
One of the benefits of manual entries, if cash flow is shaky, is the ability to know what is pending versus cleared. I would agree that when business is going smoothly and supported by recent technology, little of this matters. But you never know what situation users might be in.
Thanks for your reply
I had missed the Accounts Receivable + Customer + Invoice step which was what I needed.
In my case and very usefully my bank knows the last entry (regardless of the date) downloaded as part of a statement and offers to download from that point for the next statement request.
Very handy feature.
I am assuming you are referring to the usage of cheques (checks). Haven’t issued or probably received one those relics for nearly 10 years. In fact there are proposals in some parts of the world (Australia & New Zealand) to completely phase out there general usage by the end of 2017, as they are increasing used in fewer & fewer transactions - something like less then 1% of all bank transactions.
And they still have customers 
Must admit though that some “firms” have been destroyed by the increased usage of online transactions,
payroll and armoured vehicle hold up robbery gangs.
Manager also recognises previously downloaded transactions and wont duplicate them if they are imported a second time.
Actually, I wasn’t. I do all my banking online, but depending on “registration” status of recipient with the bank, transaction clearance can take several days after a payment is entered. Credit card charges (and especially refunds) sometimes don’t show up in an account for a week. Likewise, wire transfers seem to be processed through molasses. And a PayPal transfer to a more traditional account takes 1-3 days, depending on where it falls with respect to a weekend. I’m actually amazed it takes so long to clear so many transactions in this day and age.
In this part of the world virtually all of the above occurs overnight as part of the inter bank settlement system, even credit card refunds from the USA are here the next day. PayPal is virtually instantaneous, do the online transaction, look up the bank account (not PayPal account) and its there. Part of my business is to move funds around the world and its very rare for a transaction to take more then 3 days, generally only two.
I’m quite sure all the delays we experience are the result of financial institutions delaying transactions to the limit of what is allowed by law to exploit other people’s money during the float. For example, a credit card charge made on the 15th shows up as pending on the 19th. But on the 20th, it shows as having cleared on the 15th. So if you are paying interest, you’ll pay from the 15th. And the merchant didn’t get paid until the 19th. And somebody makes money, even if only overnight or for a couple of days, between the time a PayPal transaction disappears from my PayPal account and the time it appears in my bank account 2 days later. And explain why a so-called electronic transaction can float around in cyberspace for 3 days. Pure manipulation of the little guy.
Anyway, Manager’s pending feature helps me know how badly I’m being abused. 