Feedback from new user, 4 issues

First, this is very good software and I am very happy that it runs on Linux. That is a lifesaver. We had been using spreadsheets in conjunction with gnucash ledger but it looks like “Manager” can replace all of it for what we need to do.

Our use case might be a bit different from that of others using this software so perhaps it will helps with some things that weren’t thought of before.

1: We are using a mix of Japanese and English. When we create payslips and export to PDF or mail them out the English appears in the PDF that is created but the Japanese kanji characters are either blank or show up as boxes in most pdf reader software on either Windows or Linux. This includes the adobe software as well. The only software that seems to be able to display the kanji in the PDF is Libreoffice draw.

2: It would be very helpful if the option existed to password protect a pdf of a payslip when emailing it out to employees. That would help with trust.

3: Similarly, it would also help with trust if there was some place on the Manager.io website that showed at least the very basic company information like a company name and physical address. This is accounting software after all.

4: Also, the name of the software is sort of generic and that makes it difficult to research reviews for the software to be presented to the managers of the company to get approval to use the software in production at a company.

Again, thank you for creating some great software that really looks like it’s going to raise the bar.

1 Like

Welcome to Manager. I am glad that you like the software. I am also very happy with the software.

I am long time user of Manager and I would definitely like to second points 2,3 and 4 as I fully agree with you. My accountant emails me my payslip and it’s password protected. You are right, the website should display the Company Details as this does engender trust in the program. I definitely agree with you about the name of the software. Manager is not a good name for the program as it’s very hard to find reviews for it because of the name and also it’s not a logical name for an accounting program. Very much agree.

The developer will have to assist with the language issue as probably the program would need to be updated to handle issues like the one you mentioned.

Regarding 2: Why not save as PDF and encrypt with GPG if privacy is that much important?

I assume a significant proportion of the software sales are white labeled, so not being able to find reviews on it is actually the desired outcome. Some of the Manager type products web sites are visible only from particular countries, further supporting this.

As for physical address; Manager targets an international audience and does not have an office in all countries. I suspect it does not have an office in any country, with the few employees working from their homes. Lubos appear to mostly not have an Australian sleep wake cycle so I assume is often not in Sydney even though NGSoftware is registered in Sydney and has an association with Sydney accountants

Thank you for the feedback.

As for issue 2; using a password, one of the things that is attractive about using ‘manager’ is I can create the payslip and email it to the employee directly from inside the software and the move on to the next employee without having to move to another piece of software. When you have hundreds of employees to do payroll for the added time of opening each pdf created and then editing it to use a password is discouraging. I don’t know if adding a password option to reports, payslips, and quotes is something that can be easily done or not. On a case by case basis to submit a bid it makes sense to create the pdf and then edit it but then again I would probably just use different software. For payslips, this is a recurring action that we need to be as easy and accurate as possible. Again, I’m not criticizing, just saying a password option would make the already great software a lot better.

For issues 3 &4, I admit I hadn’t thought about the fact that they were selling a base that would be reskinned by each company. Then again, projects like Moodle, which was originally meant to get reskinned by each university that used it, has a rather unique name and that makes it easy to see what people think about the software. Also while Moodle is open source and thus by definition could be offered by any number of fork projects or even just some guy working on a computer in his dorm room, if you go to the Moodle website there is a place to called “about us” that you can click on and see that there is an organization with a name and an address in Australia. I don’t know if that address actually physically exists or not but it adds to trust. Similarly, when looking for Moodle hosting where our company would pay money to put up a website even if we intended to totally rebrand Moodle so that nothing indicating that Moodle was what we were using remained, that hosting company still has a name, an address, and a phone number so we can get in touch with sales and make a contract. It’s hard to make a contract for B2B software and services if we don’t know who to contact. Again, not criticizing, just suggesting based on our own policies at our company. It think this is really good software and the more I test it the more I really start to like this software. I’d like to be able to proudly tell our employees and our managers that we are going to switch over and use this because it’s just so much better than what we were using before.