I know it has been asked before, but I think that Manager needs some basic charting/graphs functionality in the Summary view.
Every other accounting software has it. I don’t think it’s that difficult to implement, right?
Keep up the good work!
Many users chose Manager because of its simplicity and compact size. Charting functionality is definitely NOT simple to implement, nor would it be compact. You can always export or transfer data to any sort of graphing or presentation program you like and have full analysis capability.
As is, Manager provides the classic reports in easy-to-access formats. It’s an accounting program, not a presentation program, not a spreadsheet program, not a graphics program. Accountants deal with lists of numbers.
While program feature requests are, I’m sure, always considered, they won’t gain support unless they are specific. You said in another post that you were new to accounting in general. Just what do you consider “basic charting/graphs functionality?” And why should it be in the Summary view? Summary provides the equivalent of the two most critical accounting reports: the Profit & Loss Statement and the Balance Sheet. If someone can’t understand those, graphs won’t help.
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I would also like to see a simple line graph on the summery page showing net profit made that could possibly be printable?
If it could be filtered to show by week or by month would be great.
Also, if enough data is held, having a second line on the same graph showing the previous years net profit by week / month to compare with.
Thanks for your reply. The example @itmoto mentions could be one, I mean we can come up with several examples of valuable business information plotted over time. Everyone wants to know how their business develops over a period of time.
The Summary view for me is like a dashboard, that’s why I mentioned the Summary view. Maybe a Dashboard View on it’s own is better.
@Tut - Accountants deal with numbers - business owners like ourselves are not interested in numbers per se, but rather we are interested in a quick analysis of things. You are correct that the summary view does show everything, but a graph is a much better tool for analytic comparison of income/expenses or whatever over several months/years. Graphs do have a place in accounting software that is used by business owners as its much easier to pick up issues from a visual outlook than going over numbers.
I personally think that graphs in reports should become standard eventually as visual displays sometimes show things that you don’t pick up from poring over numbers. I under where the OP is coming from - When I was trialling out Quickbooks - they had a really good dashboard which you could see at a glance your cash flow over several month. Granted I value the summary in Manager as there is not enough information on the quickbooks dashboard to give me a complete overview of my expenditure, but I can see the value in the graphical dashboard look.
Whether its easy or hard to implement I cannot say, as I am not a programmer, but I would concur that I would prefer Manager to stay compact as too many programs have too much bloat in them.
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@dalacor: you have described exactly what I meant (sorry not a native English speaker). Regarding Manager to stay compact. In the sense of all other tabs/views, the “Dashboard” tab/view could then be enabled/disabled from the settings menu.
My issue with graphs is that they take too much space and carry little signal. Most accounting packages have some sort of “Dashboard” which looks good on marketing materials and screenshots but it’s mostly useless to look at day-by-day.
I’m big fan of Edward Tufte’s work. He is serious about presenting data as efficiently as possible.
That’s executive dashboard for fictitious airline company. Notice how he is using micro-charts to show trend for various figures. Or how he is using black horizontal bar to show whether targets are met.
You can expect some of these elements and ideas to be used in Manager in upcoming months.
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I agree with you 100% @lubos We don’t need graphs that look pretty and great on marketing material but are essentially useless. Your example is more or less the kinds of thing that I was thinking of - tracking trends - thats what graphs are good at!
Im a business owner and I LOVE numbers, especially when they’re black and followed by many digits.
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Wouldn’t it be great to have those summary small graphs at the opening screen against the various elements of the P&L and BS! When I first looked at Manager I was impressed with that opening screen, because it means every time I open Manager I can immediately scan the status of the finances of our company. A graphic representation would give an even more immediate understanding of that status. Lubos, Go for it man!
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I strongly support implementation of some simple graph functionality from the Summary View. My proposal is to add a clickable “button” after each line item in the Summary View (see “mock up” below):
When this button is clicked I suggest that the user should be able to select the start date and end date for the graph (where the "period’ for the summary screen is pre set as default values).
Thereafter a standard line graph is prepared and the user will have the normal options to print, pdf or email this “report”.
Please consider something like this. I think it would be truly valuable for many Manager users in order to be able to analyse movements over time. There are endless examples where this is of great value, such as cash movement over time (liquidity), Customer receivables, Cyclical revenue behaviour etc etc
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