Hi guys. I was just about to teach myself how to built an Access database when I wondered if Manager was able to do what I want already.
I receive a monthly payment from a company I have a contract with. That single payment is made up of many smaller amounts that relate to a diverse group of clients I have worked with on that company’s behalf. I get a statement that shows how much of the single payment relates to each client.
I already use Manager to record the bulk payment to my company, but am wanting to track the payments relating to each client so I can identify trends and see which of the clients may require further maintenance. I have an idea how I could achieve this with either a database or even a spreadsheet, but it would be nice if I could gather it all together under the Manager banner if that is possible.
The Customers module doesn’t seem to do what I am needing as I don’t invoice the individual clients. Is there some other way to achieve this?
To achieve something like you require, you need to start back at the Invoicing stage, rather then at the payment stage. If you enter the sub-client’s name into the “Invoice Summary” field - Baker
then that gets listed under the Description column on the Sales Invoices tab:
Clicking on the column heading “Description” will sort that column - grouping the Baker’s together
To achieve this you can’t Invoice two sub-clients on the one Invoice to your main client,
SPECIAL NOTE: that the “Description” field within the Invoice screen doesn’t equal the “Description” column on the Sales Invoices tab listing. It’s a pity that the column on the Sales Invoices tab isn’t called “Invoice Summary” to match the Invoice for clarity.
There are other things you could try, depending on the type of information you want to be able to recover:
Use tracking codes for the sub-clients.
Create additional customers. Using @Brucanna’s example, create Zanadu-Alpha, Zanadu-Baker, Zanadu-Charlie, etc. This would require separate invoicing, which may or may not be an issue for you and your primary customer.
Wait for the long-advertised custom control accounts feature to come out. That may (or may not) provide the ability to subdivide customers.
If you provide more information about what you want to be able to recover, others might have additional ideas.
I don’t actually generate any invoices at all as the company I have a contract with produces an RCTI each month (Recipient Created Tax Invoice) which has included a breakdown of all the individual payments.
Basically, I manage a portfolio of clients who each have a certain quantum of business with the company. The RCTI lists the account balance for each of the clients, and I receive a small commission on each one. I want to track each client’s account balance, and the payment I receive in relation to each of them. At the moment, I only record the total of the payment I receive each month - which is fine just for “running” my business.
What I want to be able to do is generate a report to show if any particular client’s account balance is dropping so I can contact them to find out if there is an issue before they become a former client. Also, I want to track how much of my revenue is coming from each client so I can see which of them are most important to my business, and which of them have potential to be more important in the future.
Ideally, some basic graphing capability would be useful at some point. I know Manager doesn’t have that right now but it may be a useful addition. I have spent most of the evening doing a spreadsheet to graph this data, but it would be great to only have to enter the data once rather than twice into two separate systems.
Does this mean - the balance each client has with the company - rather then a balance they have with you as your commission is only a factor (%) of that balance.
If yes, then the clients balance which you are trying to track is a piece of data rather then being a financial transaction of your business. This could be achieved two different ways but may not be a sufficient enough solution for you.
Create each client as a Customer, then when you receive the RCTI - create an Invoice for each clients component of the commission payment and enter their account balance in the previously mentioned Invoice Summary field - then by clicking on the Customer column heading of the Sales Invoice listing you could group the clients invoices
Process the payment as a multiple of Receive Money entries. in the Payer or the Description fields you could enter the Clients name and balance
On the bank account listing by clicking on the Description column heading you could group clients
Thanks for the extra information, @pcal. @Brucanna is right: the data you are trying to track are not financial transactions, just information, and while Manager provides a number of capabilities that might be useful, all would be somewhat crude workarounds for what you really want. Most depend on use of sales invoices for the sub clients, which you don’t really need. So you are making work in Manager to avoid work in a spreadsheet. And you don’t get much payoff for your effort.
One of the things that has been mentioned is an eventual project accounting capability. That would probably suit your purposes. But it isn’t yet on the Roadmap, so you might have a long wait. The other possibility, as I mentioned before, is to wait for custom control accounts, which are #1 on the development Roadmap. But again, we don’t know exactly what that capabilities they will add.
If I were you, I would keep up my spreadsheet work, thinking of it as customer relationship management or analysis rather than accounting. Rely on the RCTI, which seems to provide all the factual documentation you need for accounting and tax purposes. Then, as capabilities of Manager increase, perhaps you can switch over in the future.
