I really like what I see as functionality of the accounting parts of Manager, but the invoice feature isn’t that great for my business here in the USA, mostly due to how sales taxes work on invoices in Manager.
I found Invoice Ninja, which looks like a great invoicing front-end.
Does anyone else here use Invoice Ninja? If so, how are you importing data from it? Is it easy? Do you have issues? I don’t care if it’s a manual process (import CSV etc), as long as it works well. I’m thinking customer, products sold accounts, tax accounts, are the minimum things I would need to import overall.
I know how to setup all of my tax rates on Manager, it wasn’t hard when I played around with the demo file. The problematic part is how to apply and use those rates.
I need to select the taxation rate (multiple part group) at the invoice-level, not per item. Invoice Ninja does this. The only thing I need per item is “is this taxable” (yes or no [services aren’t taxable where I live]). I don’t want to select a rate for every single item. I work in 10 sales tax jurisdictions, and I have to tax based on where my clients are located because I am a service business that goes to my clients. However, all items I sell are at the same (multiple part) tax rate once I am in a specific location. I don’t mind selecting one rate group per invoice, but doing it for every single line item is too error-prone. I’ve made other threads here on this months ago, I think you even responded to one actually.
This is one thing QuickBooks really gets right, but QB Desktop doesn’t allow me to import from my bank anymore and I refuse to subscribe to their online version. It isn’t even (entirely) about cost, it’s about how they do business and will screw you over at any moment after locking you in. So, I am looking for a new accounting solution. A strong desire is also to have a solution that is self-hosted for data control - both Manager and IN offer that.
Invoice Ninja does taxation the way I need, and also looks great and has a client portal. Manager.io is a great accounting software that does not have the things I like from Invoice Ninja. I am fine using both of them, if they can work together!
I agree that would be a useful enhancement for Manager (but perhaps for different reasons to you).
I would prefer Managers multipart tax code was a group of single part tax codes (for reporting and to reduce the complexity of defining a large number if tax code combinations in some jurisdictions). But to be fair, Managers tax code groups reporting category achieves at least part of this functionality.
I’m less convinced about that logic. Having to a tick or not tick each line item involves similar checking to having a “Tax Free” or specific tax group applied at the line item. The approach is also very different to Manager so if you really want that interface you are probably stuck with Quickbooks
In QB you set tax rate (or no tax) in the item list, and I could set the default tax rate on Manager to “none” for services. I just can’t set an invoice rate in Manager.
I will move away from QB no matter what I go with, I’m just hoping to stay with something self-hosted for data safety and control. I do like these two products, Manager and IN, and they offer self-hosted. I’ve made threads before about ideal taxation settings for what I need, to mirror QB, and Manager doesn’t have any interest in creating that option. You did respond on this one: USA Sales Tax Setup Issues . It would open up a huge influx of people from the USA that could use their software more effectively.
Right now, I could compare my scenario to having a separate retail or restaurant point of sale system. Those businesses also have a front-end for dealing with their customers and would need to get their data into Manager. That’s what Invoice Ninja would be for me. I know there is a way, I’m just trying to see what people’s experiences are - what needs to be laid out in the CSV for import, how well it works, etc.
Batch create. To understand the details you will need to manually create a variety of transactions in Manager then use Batch update to see the details of how to do the same via Batch create (which is identical except omits the Key field).
Treat “Invoice Ninga” as a POS system then just check the daily (or weekly or monthly totals). Which can be done by bank importing with bank rules to distribute into accounts equivalent to the major accounts maintained by your POS system. The system works best if you minimise the duplication and let your POS system do all the customer facing activities.
However if it is just tax code entry you are concerned about, it is disappointing that can’t be done in an efficient enough manner within Manager. Account auto fill tax code functionality and tax codes in bank rules works well for me.
