Beginning balances

1

I just downloaded the desktop Manager IO. the documentation says that for an account I set up that I can EDIT the account and enter a starting balance. When I go to Settings/Chart of Accounts and hit the EDIT button for my balance sheet items - there is no field to enter a starting balance. Any ideas?
We are going to start using it with our May 2024 data. I think my only option may be to do a journal entry for all the income and expenses and balance sheet totals as of 4-30-24…

2

Well done for reading the guidelines.
Unfortunately handling of starting balances has recently changed and not reflected in the older guidelines.

See New fixed asset and the acquistion field is unavailable - #10 by lubos
Or Search results for 'Starting balance @lubos order:latest' - Manager Forum

3

I found the same issue. Not sure why this feature is now excluded from the Chart of Accounts. Anyway, the traditional accounting method is to raise a General Journal which gives a neat listing of Debits/Credits. I’m new to Manager.io and am happy to use the ‘Journal Entries’ to achieve this.
I’ve also found other instances where older documentation does not reflect the latest version. I guess the benefit is the system is constantly being enhanced. The downside is older forum responses and documentation may become obsolete.

4

This is explained in the forum rules (FAQ)at FAQ - Manager Forum, also. Specifically:

Manager advances very quickly, simplifying and adding features and capabilities. Sometimes, bugs occur with new releases. But these are usually fixed rapidly, often within minutes. So if you encounter a problem with the desktop or server editions, update Manager, even if you recently did. (The cloud edition is always up to date.) You can check the latest version at https://www.manager.io/desktop/download/ .

Also pay attention to the age of Forum postings. We generally do not close topics that might be useful to someone. So be aware that responses to old questions might be out of date. Look for the most recent replies when searching the Forum.

5

Thanks all for replies. I suppose I could go back and enter transactions for the part of the year missed. (We do not have a lot of transactions); or do a journal entry for our totals as of 4-30.

6

In my opinion it is sensible to

  • Start computer accounting records at a financial year boundary.

  • Have some overlap between accounting systems (to verify it is working as expected or at least be aware of the differences).

  • I also imported several prior years as that immediately gave me comparison periods on my new accounting system (however other find this more work than it is worth to them).