Be welcome in the new world of accounting called Manager.io.
You always have a choice, accept the way Manager.io works, or hold on to the ancient way of bookkeeping. You have lots of accounting software you can choose from.
My humble advice? Take a tour, see how manager.io works and be surprised!
The new world of accounting must nevertheless accept the standards. In general Manager.io is a good software but in particular dedicated to be improved.
First of all, can we all stop being defensive and try to listen to the other side?
If there is something in Manager that is incorrect because of accounting standard - it needs to be fixed.
Other suggestions such as removing Less prefix from Liabilities is a matter of user preference. Both are correct. It’s just that Manager doesn’t give you option to not have Less prefix. But it doesn’t make Manager incorrect as per accounting standard.
Balance sheet report doesn’t show Less prefix. I know this is a bit inconsistent. Maybe the case can be made that Liabilities group doesn’t need to have prefix shown anywhere as a matter of consistency.
That’s right. But you do not have to sign an item as positive or negative. In double accounting are all items positive. The prefix “Less” is unnecessary.
Accounts like “Starting capital” and “Suspense” are unnecessary too.
I don’t understand this. How they are unnecessary? If these accounts hold balance, they need to be shown.
Obviously accounts like Starting balance equity or Suspense shouldn’t have balance if your books are complete but if you are in the middle of setting up starting balances or just after import of bank statement where your transactions are in suspense, these accounts are necessary to still confirm all debits and credits equal.
This is what I was referring to when I said you were not aware of the features of the program. Starting balance equity and Suspense accounts are both automatic, and they represent mistakes. Starting balance equity is how Manager balances the accounting equation until you properly set things up. Suspense is where the program stores incorrect, incomplete, or unbalanced entries until you fix them.
When your entries are correct, both accounts disappear.
When the BS report format is A=L+E and zero balances are not suppressed, the Less: Liabilities group label is displayed. When zero balances are suppressed, the group is labeled Liabilities.
The Less: Liabilities is also converted to just Liabilities for the A-L=E option.
In other words, it isn’t A=L+E versus A-L=E. What controls is whether zero balances are suppressed.
I can reproduce it now. Fixed in the latest version (20.6.85). I have also removed Less prefix from Summary screen to keep it consistent since it’s not shown on reports.
I mean for those who are used to Assets = Liabilities + Equity formula it doesn’t really make sense to see it there anyway.
@JosefBrunner raises another point for consideration. On the Balance Sheet report, when zero balances are not suppressed, Starting balance equity and Suspense accounts are displayed, although they are zero. It seems perhaps these should be treated differently from other zero-balance accounts because—by being zero—they merely indicate everything is entered correctly. You might want to display other zero-balance accounts (such as a clearing account), yet have no reason for these to be on your balance sheet report. This is related to Make zero-balance Suspense account visible if transactions are present, in the ideas category.
Less: prefix on P&L is required because top-level categories are not fixed. They can be named anything so Less: prefix is required to make it easier to follow the report. The case can be made that it should be an option to make it visible or not.
On Balance Sheet, top-level groups are fixed… it’s always Assets, Liabilities and Equity. For every business in the world.
