Cleared date bug or incorrect usage

I am finding it necessary to set the date of the payment to be the exact date it comes off on the bank account as this makes it a lot easier to go through the banking transactions to find an errant transaction which is preventing me from balancing my books i.e. my bank account says one amount and Manager is slightly out.

What I have noticed though is that when I set the cleared date for say 1st march, it does not show as 1st march in cash accounts transactions view. I have to change the payment date (not the cleared date) to get Manager to show the transaction in the date when it actually came off the bank account.

Would it be possible to get manager to show the entries in order of cleared date not payment date or is there some reason why its showing payment date. As most of the time, people would want to compare against the bank statement I don’t see the value in order being payment date (i.e. when i recorded the transaction).

When viewing general ledger transactions, the date of transaction will be always as per your books (not when bank has cleared it). This is fundamental rule in double-entry accounting system. The reason is that in order to obtain list of general ledger transactions, you need to click from some top-level report such as Balance sheet or from Summary tab which both prove your books balance. You cannot exclude bank transaction just because your bank didn’t clear it yet, that would throw your books out of balance.

If you need to see list of bank transactions sorted by “clear date”, you can do that by clicking on amount under Cleared Balance column under Cash Accounts tab.

sorry I am viewing the bank transactions by clickin on amount under Cleared Balance.

I have just gone through and realised what the problem is. If the payment date is 4th march, but cleared date is 3rd march (i.e. before I record the payment) then it shows the date in the column as the 4th march not the 3rd march. This very often happens when a direct debit comes off on the bank account and I do my books a couple of days later to record the transaction.

The solution is to edit the transaction date when you enter it if not on the day it actually occurred. Otherwise, you will be left with the default transaction date, which is the date the record is entered.

Interestingly, the program’s willingness to accept clearance dates prior to transaction dates can be useful when dealing with electronic fund transfers between businesses in different time zones, where dates are not always the same.

Currently the program won’t accept clear date earlier than transaction date.

If you enter clear date earlier than transaction date, Manager will interpret it as if transaction was cleared on the same date as date of transaction.

Might be worthwhile to configure the program to prevent users from setting a clearane date before payment date as many people won’t realise that and it makes it difficult a couple of months later to track transactions to find the transaction that is preventing one from balancing books.

I will remember to adjust the payment date to a date before the clearance date. Thanks

I hadn’t noticed that. I only knew Manager would accept the earlier date upon entry. You don’t usually View a pending transaction and the cleared balance register both before and after editing to cleared status. And, of course, once you’ve cleared a transaction, it vanishes from the pending register. So the opportunities for noticing this behavior are typically limited.

Actual Balance column is clickable in the latest version too. And this will show list of all cash transactions (cleared & pending)