Cash Account Changes

Has anyone else noticed changes to the cash account recently. Perhaps I missed it in a recent update newsletter?

I can no longer look things up by supplier in cash accounts. I can no longer sort properly by reference no. as the column has changed to ‘Transaction’ and since the reference no. is now preceded by the type of transaction, you cannot sort them into the correct order by reference no. If I try and sort by date instead, anything entered on the same date appears in ascending order instead of descending order as I need it to, no matter what order I enter it in.

I can search for ‘petty cash’ in receipts & payments to see my entries in the right order, but then doesn’t include my inter account transfers to petty cash and even worse, it does not show me a balance column, so I can only see the amount for each entry, not how the entry changes the overall balance following the entry.

These lost features were key for me in entering and checking a paper petty log kept by staff, so the cash account has been completely ruined for me now and I cannot yet see how the changes have enhanced the petty cash account.

Does anyone have any work arounds? Or can anyone explain to me what we have gained from the changes? Thanks

Yes, there have been some changes to displays following introduction of the new general ledger engine, which was announced in the June newsletter.

You can do both in the Receipts & Payments tab. The reference numbers are not associated with cash accounts; they are associated with receipts and payments.

Nevertheless, the reference number information is there and is still sorted when you first click into the Cash Accounts tab and select the balance of a specific cash account. Here is an example from a test business:

Screen Shot 2020-07-31 at 11.33.48 AM

That particular example has only transactions on widely spaced dates. Here is one from a different account that includes transactions on the same date. The sort order is first by date, then by Transaction. Assuming you use automatic sequence numbers, the transactions come up in order (not every number is included in this example, because not every one was posted to this particular account):

Screen Shot 2020-07-31 at 11.34.52 AM

Click the heading again to reverse the sort order.

Nor should it, because inter account transfers are not receipts or payments. This is not new. It has been this way since inter account transfers were introduced years ago. And the Cash Accounts drill-down still lists inter account transfers, just like it always has. Nothing about this has changed.

There are two comments to make here:

  • Receipts & Payments have never shown a balance, because that tab does not represent an account. Its transactions could be posted anywhere.
  • If you look in the Cash Accounts tab, once you have searched, you eliminate some entries. So a running balance no longer makes sense. This is also not new behavior. It has always been this way.

I don’t think you need one. Cash account transactions are still displayed in date > transaction order. They were previously in date > reference order. But since the reference number is included in the new Transaction column, the sort ends up being the same. Suppliers or customers can be searched and sorted in the Receipts & Payments tab. Or you can look in the Customers or Suppliers tabs and drill down on their invoices. Or look at Customer/Supplier Statements.

In summary, you have noticed two things: (1) the separate reference column in Cash Accounts drill-downs has been replaced with a transactions column that includes the reference number, but still sorts the same way, and (2) the old contact column was removed under cash account drill-downs, but that information is still available in the Receipts & Payments tab.

Yes they are, when transferring funds the receipt in Bank A is the result of a payment from Bank B. It is just that Manager doesn’t list Inter Account Transfers under the Receipts & Payment tab.

Thanks for your feedback. The problem is that once you choose to ‘sort’ you lose the ability to see the balance. Previously I didn’t need to sort as the reference no.s would automatically be in the right order, now, even though I enter eg ref no. 902 on 30/7 first and then 903 on 30/7 next, it will show 902 as the latest cash entry. My issue is that I am reconciling staff petty cash logs entered on a paper log, with the entries I create in the cash account, so I need to be able to see both the amounts entered for each new payment, as well as the effect on the balance of each new entry to ensure everything tallies.

Thanks Brucanna. Yes, exactly. I am withdrawing money from the ATM machine to give my staff member money for their petty cash box and these withdrawals appear as inter account transfers from the bank account to the cash account. Ie these are my receipts in the cash account and I need them to show up in the correct order when looking at the cash account, so I can see the effect on the overall balance. If I ‘sort’ by transaction, then I lose the order of the receipts and payments, as I see all the payments and then all the receipts underneath them (depending on which way I sort). I also lose the ability to see the changes in the balance once I choose to ‘sort’.

Yes, you’re right about that, but that’s why it was so useful to be able to have the balance showing in the cash account.

Again, you’re right, but because I now have to sort the transactions, I lose the balance feature. Before there was no need to sort the transactions, as they were automatically listed in the right order with the newest entry at the top and within the same day the higher numbered entry appeared at the top of the entries for that day.

I’m still not sure what has been gained with these changes to the cash account… I realise that it was part of a bigger change, but what I’ve noticed so far is the effect it has had on the cash account.

Thanks

@FCP your dissatisfaction arises because you were previously relying on a coincidence between your workflow and Manager’s sorting and display processes. The fact is, Manager has never had the ability to sort transactions by the order in which they were entered. The program considers all transactions with the same date to have been entered simultaneously. That has always been true. So running balances have only ever been correct at the end of the day.

From what you have written so far, it is not clear why this is so important to you. If you give an employee a cash box at the beginning of the shift and enter all the same transactions in Manager the employee has in the paper log, the balance at the end of shift should match. How would you ever know, and why would it matter, how the running balance in the cash box varied during the shift? What would it matter, for example, if the employee had a rush of customers and, in order to serve them all faster, entered two transactions out of chronological order? As long as the numbers were correct, the log, Manager, and the physical cash count would match when the cash box is turned back in.

Thanks for your feedback, but I disagree. In the cash account my entries have always automatically been listed in order of reference no., without me having to sort and thereby lose the balance column.

The staff I manage to do not work on a shift basis. I manage property for clients who have a housekeeper who is responsible for a cash box, which is always in her care. Every few weeks I collect the receipts and the paper logs and enter everything into Manager and then check that everything tallies. Sometimes she makes small mistakes… for example entering the amount on the receipt incorrectly on the log, or writing the petty cash balance remaining after a transaction incorrectly. In order to identify where an error has been made, I need to look at the running balance after each transaction to see that they match the ones I have on Manager. Human error will always occur and I was previously able to identify any errors very easily, but with the changes I no longer can. All I can see now is that my final balance and her final balance do not match and I need to add each transaction up manually to see where the error occurred, which is much more time consuming. Thanks

This part matters, because I keep the paper logs, along with all the paper receipts for our accountant, or auditor, or VAT department, or whoever might decide they want to look at them at a later date and I want everything to tally. I believe the paper log of transactions should match the Manager version. Thanks

A shift can be of any length. In your case, a few weeks.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not trying to tell you the current display is the same as before or that your personal workflow was not better suited by the old display. After all, you developed your workflow because of the old display. But I still wonder how much of an inconvenience the current display really is.

For example, if a housekeeper enters one transaction per day, the running balance should be exactly the same as before after every transaction. If there are 3 transactions per day, the balance at the end of the day should be exactly the same as before. If it is not, you have only 3 transactions to examine. That is a big difference from having “to add each transaction up manually to see where the error occurred.”

Now, if there are 100 transactions on a typical day, that would be a different situation. But the record is still segmented so that end-of-day balances should match. There is no reason you would ever have to recalculate the entire log to find a single error.

Thanks for your input. There are days when I have a number of transactions, so it is definitely not as simple as it used to be for me to tally everything, but I guess I will have to learn to live with it and presumably I will get better at doing it differently once I get used to it.