I’m trying to use Manager to run the finances associated with a choral society. Each member pays a subscription and there are various outgoings such as orchestral fees, building rents etc.
At the end of our financial year the accounts are audited. I then want to be able to wipe everything out and start from nothing, except for the balance carried on from the previous year.
I can see under ‘financial performance start date’ I can set the start of this financial year. I assume that is what I need to do each year, but then how do I look back on previous years say 2012-1013. How do I set the end date for the period I’m interested in?
Typically when you create reports, you can set period for which you want these reports to run. So to look back on previous years, you should simply create appropriate reports for that period under Reports tab.
During the year I will issue many invoices to members who have to pay their subscription, and paid various people for room rent etc. At the start of the financial year I want the values in all these to be zeroed so I can start again. As a test, I have set the start date to yesterday but all the invoices are still visible with dates before the new start date. Is the only way to back up the main file and start again with a new file? That just seems rather cumbersome.
You mean at the start of the financial year you want the system to show no invoices under Sales Invoices tab?
If so, then that’s now how Manager should be used. Normally you want to keep history on all your members so when member comes to you week after your new financial year starts, you can pull out customer statement for whatever period they need (even multiple years) regardless what is your financial year. No need to tell them excuse “oh, you should have asked last week, too late now”
That’s exactly what I want. So all the members are there but I want to start with a clean sheet at the start of the year and display zero payments for the current year, but also retain the information of previous years if I should need it.
I thought that would happen when I reset the business start date but when I tried it I still see all the invoices for dates before the new start date.
Start date concept has been removed a few versions back. It was misunderstood feature and it was replaced with something less ambiguous.
Anyway, what you are asking is visual enhancement right? Like “don’t show any transactions which are before certain date” but those transactions should still be in the system for historical purposes.
This is not currently possible. Manager will show everything you’ve entered into the database. You can still get report for any period so it’s not like you are missing out on anything, it’s just that you want to see “clean” lists when new financial year starts, correct?
Yes that’s correct. As a work around I thought of copying the data file to a new one at the start of each year and then deleting all the payments in the new one to give me a clean sheet for the next year - hence my other question about moving the data file.
But why? Manager is designed to hold multi-year records so when analyzing a customer, you can analyze the complete history, not just current financial year. The same goes for bank accounts, employees etc.
If you want to hide all transactions from tabs before certain date, it could be done with some upcoming module. That way visually you could eliminate records you don’t want to see anymore but they would be still part of ledger.
I have all the members listed as Customers (ie, they pay me money as subscriptions). At the start of each year, I create an invoice for this year’s subscription for all members. When they pay I ‘receive’ money and it becomes marked with “Paid in Full”. So I can easily see who has paid and who hasn’t. Also if they pay in two parts, I can easily see how much they still owe.
Now at the start of the next year, I don’t want to see what they’ve paid last year. I want the same list of members, and want to create a new set of invoices and start again.
I appreciate that Manager is designed for multi-year records but I don’t want that. I need each year to start with a clean slate, then at the end of the year, everything is audited and I want to archive those records and start afresh with everything zeroed. I’m trying to find a way of making Manager do this. What I’m hoping to do is each year make a backup and then delete all the money transactions, but leave the members records intact, and then have a single bank entry “carried forward”. Does this make sense? Is there a better way? It sounds like the up and coming module you describe is what I need but I’m trying to find a work around until it’s available.
How are u accounting for all the outstanding invoices that you eliminate seems your accounts receivable would become overstated from previous year receivables (old invoices) that you are not writing off uncollectable invoices as bad debt. This is assuming you have invoices with balances outstanding and no intent to collect.
Anyway, Manager is just a tool. If someone prefers to start completely new file each year, there is nothing technically wrong with that. However there is no need to do that as Manager has been designed to support multi-year data.