Clone inter account transfers

I find that I enter transactions into Manager Accounting much faster than with my previous accounting program. Although the previous program had memorized transactions, I find that Manager Accounting’s cloning of transactions is more automatic and swift. It is more automatic because I do not have to memorize any transactions.

The only thing is that maybe the ability to clone transfers between cash accounts would be nice. Most often, the transfers are payment of a credit card or the like from a bank account. So both work well as cash accounts.

I can clone journal entries. But I don’t see that the journal can access the cash accounts. I like that the journal does not access cash accounts because that helps me enter the same transaction the same way every time.

I don’t see that one cash account can spend into another cash account or receive money from another cash account. But might be nifty if it could because then you could eliminate the transfer function altogether. And the spend and receive functions have cloning.

So, I present these two ideas. I do not think both should be implemented. I think either one or the other would be implemented.

Summarising the two ideas:

Either

  1. Add cloning to transfers between cash accounts.
    or
  2. Eliminate the transfer button and function altogether and allow cash accounts to spend and receive between one another.

Anybody like one or the other ideas? Have another idea?

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I think this would be a backward step. The Transfer function includes code to force both ends of the transaction to be equal in value. And you can separately indicate Cleared or Pending status. On a Spend or Receive function, you can only do that on one end of the transaction, not both. This can be critical when the transfer is between different institutions, and may even be by snail mail.

I’ve also wished for a clone capability on transfers. I don’t know why it’s not there.

This can’t occur because which bank transaction do you process - the paying bank or the receiving bank. Read the following

Bank Transfers are actually two separate accountings transactions not a single accounting transaction.

  1. Bank A Spend Money - Credit Bank A and Debit ???
  2. Bank B Receive Money - Debit Bank B and Credit ???

The Bank Transfer feature in Manager allows you to truncate that to a single entry - Credit Bank A & Debit Bank B

However, when importing bank statements and using Bank Rules, the processing of two transactions is still required because (rightfully) Manager’s Bank Rules prevents any allocation directly to other Bank/Cash accounts otherwise you would have duplicate transactions as demonstrated below.

If you substituted the ??? for the opposing Bank account you would now have:

  1. Bank A Spend Money - Credit Bank A and Debit Bank B
  2. Bank B Receive Money - Debit Bank B and Credit Bank A

Bank A now has two credit entries and Bank B now has two debit entries - hence the duplication. So to use the Import Bank Statement you need in the Bank Rule to post the opposing debit/credit entry to a clearing account, where the contra from each transaction will cancel themselves out.

  1. Bank A Spend Money - Credit Bank A and Debit Clearing Account
  2. Bank B Receive Money - Debit Bank B and Credit Clearing Account

The Clearing Account can be created as either a Current Asset or Current Liability

Tut

I just learned from you about the cleared-pending status. I think the cleared-pending status will be very useful to me for reconciling and for tracking when banks and merchants recognize an action as completed.

If we eliminate the transfer button, I think what we lose is seeing both cleared-pending statuses at once. Because the way I imagine eliminating the transfer button would be like this:

I am in the Bank of New Zealand Bank Checking cash account and Spend into the Visa Credit Card account. I set pending. Then I go to the Visa Credit Card account and see the other half of the transaction as a Receive from New Zealand Bank Checking. I notice it says cleared, so a edit it to say pending.

So, I think that scenario just supports your point, Tut. I like the way it is now that it defaults to cleared. But if I want to track pending, I can set it. And I don’t have to go to the other account to set pending.

So, I would vote just to add cloning to Transfers.

Thank you for explaining the use of cleared-pending. I did not even think to ask. I like it.

As with many features, there is a Guide, too: http://www.manager.io/guides/track-cleared-and-pending-status/7307.

I found the feature intuitive without further explanation. And when I went to the Guide as I suggested, I gained a lot of depth in my understanding of the features intent and uses.

Thank you again.

I vote for the ‘Clone’ button for tranfers between cash accounts.

I pay credit cards every month from bank account with the same amount every month, so it be really useful to have this option available. :slight_smile:

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I have communicated with @lubos on this topic. He confirmed my belief that there was no technical obstacle to cloning transfers. Then he, himself, put the topic into the Ideas category, so I think we can be hopeful.

2 Likes

Added to the latest version (17.11.15)

I just checked out the cloning for inter-account transfers.
Thank you. Much appreciated.