I am offering customers the choice of buying in-house currency to serve as a pre-paid account. What is the best practice, using Manager, to reflect the purchase of in-house credits, running balance of in-house currency a customer has, and how do I set it up so this credit can be used to pay for our services instead of USD? At first, I was using a negative dollar value to post a credit due, but this won’t accurately reflect the sale and income it generates. Help! I’m just a small 1-man entrepreneur trying to figure out how to use this awesome program…
One way to do this is with special accounts. Read this Guide: Use special accounts | Manager. The last example in the Guide illustrates tracking gift cards, but the idea would be identical.
When the customer purchases in-house currency, first create a special account for that customer. Then, use a receipt, allocating the line item to the special account to record the purchase. When they buy something, use a sales invoice as shown in the example, with a line or lines for whatever they buy and a negative entry posted to the special account to draw upon the in-house currency balance.
Because the amounts customers have purchase represents money you hold in trust for them, the control account should be set up as a liability account.
Thanks… never thought of a special account. Will learn from your suggestion. Peace!
Problem… the Guide suggests to use “Customize” to find “Special Accounts”, and I don’t see it on the list!
I am using the free desktop version of Manager. Bootstrapping my startup! Is that why I can’t find “special accounts” inside of Customize?
The Customize link is below the list of enabled tabs in the left navigation pane. You will need to scroll down to see the tick box for Special Accounts. But it is there in all editions.
Oh, I know that. Problem is that there is no “special accounts” listed…cash accounts is near the top of the list and capital accounts is near the bottom, but no special accounts with a check box can be found anywhere. Also can’t find “Custom Control Accounts” inside of Settings, FYI.
What category is listed directly above it in Customize? Then I’ll know where it should be and tell you what I am seeing, instead…
Also don’t have a Receipts & Payments tab in left-hand list OR listed inside of Customize! Yikes, where is the rest of my Manager program…I seem to be missing everything I need to get this setup correct!
Here’s a direct Copy/Paste of my Customize list:
- Summary
- Bank Accounts
- Cash Accounts
- Expense Claims
- Customers
- Sales Quotes
- Sales Orders
- Sales Invoices
- Credit Notes
- Delivery Notes
- Suppliers
- Purchase Orders
- Purchase Invoices
- Debit Notes
- Employees
- Payslips
- Inventory Items
- Inventory Write-offs
- Production Orders
- Billable Time
- Billable Expenses
- Fixed Assets
- Intangible Assets
- Capital Accounts
- Journal Entries
- Emails
- Reports
- Settings
No “Special Accounts” and no “Receipts & Payments” 
What version number are you using? You are missing 12 entire functional tabs, including one that cannot ever be disabled. Where did you download your software from? You should only ever download from the official website: Download | Manager.
Version 16.1.0
I read about the program in an online review and believe it downloaded from the home site. Since I backed up to my hard drive, should I uninstall this copy and use your link to download?
Maybe. That version, if it was even genuine, would be literally thousands of versions out of date. Have you been using the program for actual accounting, or are you just setting up?
Just learning and setting up for my SMLLC…no harm done. I just uninstalled that version and am going to the link you shared. Thanks! Glad I found out during set up and before a single real transaction!
When you have downloaded and installed from the correct website, let me know after launching the program if the businesses page which will be the splash page shows the business you had already created. If it does, that will mean the program was likely genuine and you can continue using the same data.If it does not list the business on the businesses page, then I would be curious to see what’s in your application data folder. So please get back to me with that information.
Also be sure to follow the correct installation instructions from the Guides according to your operating system.
Interesting versions number
Using Managers version number notation that would suggest
- 16 indicates it was a versions from 2016
- 1 indicates it was probably a version from January
- 0 indicates it was the first or before the first version in January 2016 (typically over 20 versions occur per month sometimes over 100
Overall suggests that is unlikely to be a genuine version of Manager.
Installed perfectly! Initially opened with 2 unreadable businesses (not mine, thought they were part of the new download; system couldn’t load them). Deleted those and added my saved business from my cloud backup. Opened it and it seems all the data I had inputted (mainly business profile & logo) are there.
Its AMAZING, I see why you were confused. There were A LOT of things I was missing! It is all there now. Goes to show that the web is full of all kinds…always will only trust original publisher site for downloads in the future. THANKS! Now I can get to work…probably signing off for now. Will definitely use Forum for questions in the future. This has been very helpful, friendly, and informative!
Sorry for the delayed response, Tut… the system barred me from any more replies for 24hrs as a new user. It said I had reached my limit for the day! Irritating, since we were in the process of making real headway! Still, its all good on my end. Everything is present and appears to be working. Thanks
My new question is… how should I properly account for an owner drawdown of business profits? I see in Summary how Manager informs me of the owner’s equity in the business since I logged my initial capitalization amount. I just want to be accurate when the time comes to pay myself from company coffers.
Two things, @InfoHunter:
-
Read the Guide about managing the content of the application data folder. You may have spurious files in there you will want to get rid of.
-
When you make a draw, create a payment posted to the capital account. Read the Guides about all those, too.