Desktop edition

If you are using Manager, we would love to hear from you.

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Here are some ideas of what you can mention:

  • What do you do? How does Manager help you?
  • Is there something you particularly like about Manager? If so, what it is?
  • If you previously used other accounting software, what was it and why did you switch to Manager?

We are a manufacturing company and we have been using Manager desktop edition for five months now. As a manufacturing company we needed more than just invoice making feature and Manager provides everything from general ledger, payroll, purchase, sales, inventory management, etc. And there is also possibility of customization. Unlike other free softwares available in the market Manager does not have any restrictions regarding the features available which are more than sufficient for a small to medium business. Also, the best part is frequent updates and support from the developers which we usually do not receive for a free product elsewhere.

As an accountant for a Non-Governmental Organisation, I needed an accounting software that was light and has simple user interface but has all the important features (Payroll, general ledger, expense claim tracking, custom fields, fixed asset management, intangible asset management, inventory management, account Receivable and payable management, aged receivables and payables, Cash/Bank accounts management etc.)
The customisation features in manager left us wondering why we paid so much to use Tally ERP 9.
We paid so much for support and maintenance, but with Manager.io’s very effective forum, other users and the Manager.io team provide in time responds to support us. We have been using manager since the last quarter of 2014 and will undoubtedly do always.
We particularly love Manager.io because of the Fixed and intangible asset management tools and how it easily flows into the chart of accounts through the custom control accounts feature.
Manager.io offers exceptionally high quality financial accounting platform for free.
I particularly feel I have contributed to its growth because several feature suggestions I made were added to the application. This is how good the Manager.io team responds to user’s suggestions and complaints.

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Would just like to say a few words on how Manager as a programme and as a forum has helped me with the ease of making accounting such an easy task. I used to hate paperwork, one of those tasks that took me away from doing other productive things, and of course leisure time.

Well manager has simplified all the hard tasks, and I now spend minimum time in doing my books.

The forum is a great place to get answers for all sorts of queries and problems, and because the programme is used in many different countries with different requirements, it helps to understand difficulties that others can have and how each other can assist most problems.

I’m from Malaysia, even though Manager.io does not have Malaysia’s complete GST compliance standard, the flexibility, customize-ability and modular features helps to minimize the chunkiness of usual accounting software ui and unwanted templates. Which I can manage it to accommodate certain degree of Malaysia’s GST compliance.

I have used about 5 months now, My business would be a small business of package delivery and underway to add additional services relating to commission based business such as Insurance.

Manager.io is still in growing phase, business users’ opinion and practices contributes the software’s design in a way one-fits-for-all.

Oh yeah, Manager.io have yet to reach the stage of visual graph features, it can export the data as .tsv extension which you can use on excel to plot the graph or custom made arranged reports.

The features I mostly used, would be, expense claim, sales invoice, special accounts, folder, custom template, backup, manager server, budget, non-inventory items, custom fields, custom tabs (modular features), cash account, fixed assets, capital accounts and flexible chart of accounts.

I have used MYOB, Intuit Quickbooks, Sage Peachtree, GNUCash, Turbocash, Kmymoney, and Malaysian’s made software gst compliance called SPS. Manager.io just too perfect without price tag for desktop version. :heart_eyes:

There are several drawbacks that I like to see the improvement.

  1. (Malaysia Gst compliant) an option to have tax summary in Sales and Purchase invoice. In addition, tax classification display per line items.
  2. An option to have split defined accounts in non-inventory features that ease my extra step to show decent invoice without seeing my split accounts for commission based accounting treatment.
  3. Since manager are based on liquid language and html enabled, implementation of WYSIWYG editor in manager.
  4. Examples of custom template and variables usage in context of Manager accounting software.
  5. Releases log and separate between stable version release and early release version for user’s input. Sometimes these simple things jeopardize my workflow.
  6. Documentation for custom report.
  7. Improve Appdata random alphanumeric string names into recognizable user defined string names of .manager file.
  8. “Password Retrieval” features supported for manager server to cater for user who forgot their given password through email.
  9. Since tracking code and budget implemented, the next step is the enhancement of report that shows the Key Performance Index (KPI) for department level. Even thought the budget needs few improvement regarding user defined range of dates that can be quarterly or monthly.
  10. Multiple level of tracking codes that can track by departments, groups, or individuals. The reason is for comparative reports since it can show tracking codes as well.
  11. Multiple level of special accounts due to my nature of business that I have to distinct and apportion the commissions by individuals’ sales. With an option not to display individuals’ special accounts details in balance sheet.

I own a small business in the Motorcycle sector based in the UK and have been using Manager Desktop since 2014 and in short I am extremely pleased I stumbled across it!

After setting up the business in 2012 with no prior business experience or accounting knowledge I did all my bookkeeping and invoicing the old fashioned way with paper and pen and despite my Accountant saying how great my bookkeeping was, it started taking up a lot of my time without earning me a penny! So, at the end of the first year I decided to look for a software package that would combine my business invoicing, accounts and inventory.

When I started researching the software packages available on the market I found there to be only a few programs specific to the Motorcycle Trade that are used by large businesses but they were expensive to set up and came with equally expensive annual subscription/maintenance fees which made them not financially viable for my business ‘only in its second year!’

Over a few months I trialled several of the popular Accounting packages including QuickBooks, Sage, Xero, Express Accounts, etc but I found them all to be far too generic, rigid and uncustomisable so therefore completely unsuitable for my business requirements.

To summarise, the most essential part of any software (in my sector) is having the ability to record and modify customer vehicle information e.g. make, model, registration number, vehicle identification number, colour code and mileage (and there can be more than one vehicle per customer). I needed to be able to select the correct vehicle when creating an invoice, enter the mileage and create and store a service history for that vehicle.

Later I also trialled some cheaper automotive specific packages I found on the internet but again they failed to provide the features I required, were very limited in the amount of customisation you could perform and were not very user friendly.

After nearly a year of looking I had almost given up hope of finding a suitable package, and then I stumbled across Manager. It was relatively new at the time which I think is the reason it hadn’t popped up on previous internet searches. I downloaded the free desktop version and the rest is ‘as they say is history!’

From the off I found it to be a very flexible yet simple and easy to use program. It provides both the basic business structure i.e. chart of accounts, accounts payable, accounts receivable, buy inventory - spend money, sell inventory/services – receive money, whilst also offering great customisation options. With a clever use of custom fields and creating a personal invoice template/theme with a little help, I am able to do exactly what I need.

With the help of the Forum members and Developer the software is also constantly evolving to provide more features on request of its many users, the developer has designed it in such a way that you enable the features you want and it hides the features you don’t. Perfect!

Key plus points:

  1. Ease of use/intuitiveness
  2. Excellent customisation, custom fields, invoice customisation
  3. The Forum moderators and other users speedy help and advice 24/7
  4. Developers professionalism, fairness, speed to rectify any bugs, take on board and support any ideas to make user experience more friendly/intuitive, and his main goal to not bloat the program with unnecessary features.
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I have been using Manager for just over two years and would never go back to using spreadsheets for my accounting ever again as Manager has saved me so much time and has made accounting an enjoyable task rather than a chore I hated doing. These are some of the things that I like about Manager.

Simple and Easy to Use

Manager is designed for business managers who are not accountants and just want to manage their finances. The ease of use is the biggest win for Manager. Far too many accounting programs are too difficult to use and have too many bloat features (most of which are never used by the end user) and use terminology that only accountants understand. If you want something that helps you to manage your finances and is simple to use so that you spend more time running your business and less time on your paperwork for finances then Manager is what you need!

Choice to use Cloud, Server or Desktop Version thus real choice

Manager offers great customer flexibility in that you can use the Cloud, Server or Desktop version. Many people don’t want or need the cloud version and resent being forced to use the Cloud because many software companies are moving to cloud or annual licensing schemes to milk more money from the customer. Manager one the other hand gives customers real choice. I like having a desktop version that I control when I want to upgrade etc.

Great Forum Support

Excellent support - the forum has never failed to provide me with an answer and also has a real community feel to it and the developers take an active interest in the forum and frequently respond to suggestions, bugs, questions etc themselves. I like companies that have that personal touch in an age where customers are treated as numbers by huge corporations. I also like the fact that some features that have been suggested forum users eventually ended up in the program showing that the developers here listen to their customers.

Best module for my company

Inventory Module has been brilliant for my business as it allows me to re-order products by making it easy to find the part code, supplier etc for re-ordering purposes. I work with selling computers, laptops and other IT equipment so the inventory module is brilliant for this. This has been a major time saver for me as well as the fact that it now takes me 2 minutes to do end of year accounts instead of 2 days like it did with my excel accounting.

Modular Functionality - only intall the features you need

Modular functionality - How I wish more programs were like this where you only added the modules that you wanted instead of having all options in the program whether you use them or not. This helps to make the program easier and simpler to use by only providing the core functionality and the features that you actually use.

Customisation of program

Customisability. I like that I can customise the summary page to suit my needs and make it easier for me to break up my income and expenses into categories that make sense for me so I understand what I am looking at more easily. In point of fact, I can customise other areas of the program such as using custom columns to add more information that is relevant to my particular business. This is better than a generic one size fits all program which too many accounting programs are.

Fast, small footprint and easy to backup

Fast and resource efficient. Loads very quickly and minimal footnote on memory, disk space etc. Thus very easy to backup the program settings and the financial data as very few files to backup. If you do online backups, you will appreciate the small file sizes and tiny number of files that need to be backed up.

Platform Independent

Works on Mac, Windows and Linux although I only use it on Windows, but its a handy feature to be aware of given that we all hop from device to device nowadays.

Great for Personal Household Finances as well

Great for personal finances as well. This program is not just suited for business use. Because its so easy to use, has modular support and great flexibility it works really well for home personal finance as well. Especially once the budgeting feature has been fully implemented.

Sum up

If you are looking for an accounting program, what you really want is something that is simple to use and is not a resource hog on your computer. Manager does what I need in this regard.

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My wife and I own a small food take away business and we have been using manager.io from day one. I looked around at the software available in the bookkeeping realm but they were either expensive or pay-by-the month. Also most were based in the cloud, I wanted my data stored locally and available offline. I also do most of my work in linux and manager is cross platform compatible with linux, windows and mac.

Manager is full featured, free in the desktop edition, and hugely customisable to your needs. The community support around the product is second to none. I approached my accountant with my laptop in hand and presented her with the software. She had never seen or heard of it before, but intuitively she walked me through all the required areas I needed to take care of. I could ask a question and she was able to take me straight to the related area. I can easily save out my data file and send it to her. She is able to download the desktop version which is free and use that to go over my numbers.

I would recommend anyone in a similar position to at least give manager a go, you’ll probably not bother trying anything else

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Using Manager has really been a great experience. I have been using Manager for the past 4 Years and have seen it grow into a great tool for our accounting needs and we have recommended Manager to our all our customers. This was a great experience to see Manager grow to where it is today being built on the feedback and ideas from users in the forum. Keep up the good work, Manager is the best accounting application for cross platform use out there.

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I’ve been using manager for about two (2) months now. I work for a startup marketing company and I basically make up the whole accounting department – like I’m the only employee in my department. Also, the company has been operating for a few months already before I even came along without a proper accounting setup. So, imagine having to try to sort through the transactions before I came and making sure we’re “accounting” compliant. I thought I couldn’t handle it. Manager.io basically saved me from losing my work-life balance. With this software, i definitely don’t mind being a one-man department. By the way, the community behind manager.io is also very very supportive. That’s another great factor that makes this software way even better than the others. Cheers everyone!

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I am a young Zambian accounting student who has started offering Bookkeeping services. What I particularly like about Manager is it’s user friendliness, unlimited Business and users on my cloud manager domain and the online forum. I have had a chance to interact with KashFlow and Xero and they are not user friendly to my clients that only have a laymans accounting understanding… KashFlow is not growing and the graphics are not encouraging. Xero seems to be leading right now but I have faith that soon, and very soon manager will beat Xero…

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I’ve been trying the desktop version in test environment and found very good, I should say it is well designed tool and report. I myself was a programmer and system analyst 10 years back. i know the domains and after the very first experience with Manager, I did not want to try a second product for comparison or convincing the Team. I am now going for a server version for its security and user level access.

Only big drawback i experience is entering in data entry in sales offer, i can create inventory list of 100+ items in excel sheet and do the batch creation, that’s beautiful. But when it comes for the start of a transaction through sales offer/quote, i am expected to use the search field, filter it and populate for every single line items 100+ times. This can become very simple and appreciable if the search field has a checkbox to allow automatically populate the all line items filtered.

And second thing I see is the system is so user friendly, it allows transactions back dated. yes, it is required for start ups to clear back logs, I expect the server edition will have user lever restriction to this and have log record.

I expect server edition should have more direct access to the developer and customization support. i see not much discussed on the Payroll and have to try it myself. Good Luck, it’s a 100% perfect software for any usual and trading business. It will be very great if the software get tested and certified by any CISA or other Approvals for the double entry system and fool proof system.

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