Lots of help needed by "newbie"

1

I do apologise in advance for the length of my post but as you can see, I’m very new to this and really don’t have much of an idea of how Manger (or other accounts packages really work).

I have been running a small business in Australia for a couple of years and up until now, I haven’t needed to register for GST as my turnover has been so small.

Due to the growth that I’ve experienced, I feel that I will need to register for GST in the near future and as a result, I will have to change from MS Money to something more suitable and by what I can see, “Manager” looks as though it may tick all of the boxes (or most of the boxes) for me.

I have been stumbling around using the desktop version and it all seems quite straight forward and easier to use than most other packages that I’ve played with, but I’m hoping that someone can give me some clues on a couple of points.

Although I am running the free version at the moment, once I can work out how to use the system, I will be buying the full version if it works for me and does what I need it to do

Firstly,a lot of my sales are generated from either my website or EBay and as a result, when the deposit appears in my bank account, it is less than the invoice amount due to PayPal deducting their fees prior to transferring the funds.

I am hoping that someone is able to suggest how I can enter the payment so that the outstanding invoice shows a zero balance with the PayPal commission that has been deducted being transferred to a separate account.

Secondly, I would like to have a field shown on my Sales Invoices where I can add a delivery address and tracking details as required.

I have discovered the “Custom Fields” section of the application but can’t work out how to create a field and have it included on invoices.

It would also be great if I would be able to include a notation on all of my Sales Invoices showing our Bank Account details.

Last, but by no means least, it would be appreciated if someone could let me know how I can enter inventory items that are received against Purchase Orders that have been raised.

Is there any way that (inventory) receipts can be entered “automatically” from a Purchase Order so that Stock on Hand and “new” average costs can be calculated ?

I do again apologise for the length of my post but as you can see, I am all new to this accounting thing but I do hope that someone may be able to help me through the “minefield”.

Cheers

Paul Lewis

2

You already have the full version. The desktop version is complete, and will always be free no matter how many transactions, customers, suppliers, or inventory items you might have. Search the forum for “freemium” for an explanation of Manager’s business model.

Enter the payment as the amount the customer paid, but allocate a portion to an income account and a portion to a fees/commission expense account. If you sold on credit, you should have created a sales invoice and you’ll enter payment via Accounts receivable. If you were paid at the time of purchase, simply Receive Money.

Put these in the Notes section.

Custom fields are currently only for internal use. There is a plan for the future to allow you to incorporate them in reports, which you will probably have to design/code yourself.

Put this in the Notes section (where you can even specify default text) or in Settings>Business Details>Business Identifier.

I’m not well-versed on Inventory, so someone else will have to answer your questions there. But I strongly recommend reading the Guides. Unfortunately, they are currently in revision and are not complete. But searching the forum will yield many threads from which you can glean information in the interim.

3

As far as I am aware, you need to do your initial update to the Inventory Database by Adding the Items that you stock in “Inventory Items”, by clicking on “New Inventory Item”

Your Initial Opening Balance of quantities of the Inventory Items can entered by clicking on the QTY fields and entering the appropiate values.

After this everytime you raise a Purchase Order with your Supplier and then a Purchase Invoice, the system will automatically update your Inventory Items quantities in Stock as per your QTY Purchase Order.

Hope this helps !

I may under correction on the above, but that is how I seem to have mine working…! Any further suggestions/advice …?

4

If I am not mistaken, a purchase order will not increment inventory on hand. I believe only a purchase invoice will do that, reflecting the difference between merely ordering an item and actually paying for it, which presumably is more closely tied to its being available in stock. Others will know for sure.

5

Thanks so much for all of your advice, it has been especially great to see the responses come in so quickly as well.

One last question (for now) :smile:

Is their a guide book or something similar available like “Manager for Dummies” ?

I know that I can access “Guides” through the application and this is great for explaining the various forms and fields etc, but it would be great if there was a list of “How To’s” to assist Dummies like me.

6

Sorry. No other documentation. @lubos is working on better documentation, but for now experimenting is the best way to learn the application. You might even want to create a second “test” business so you aren’t experimenting on your real-life accounting records.

If you’re looking for general accounting tutorials, I recommend http://www.accountingcoach.com.

7

There are also some YouTube video tutorials.
Click on partners at the top then OBM Training centre.

These may help.

8

HI and welcome to a fantastic program. I was also very green when I started and MYOB absolutely had me baffled. Wehn Lubos started this program, he was invaluable help to my inadequate accounting knowledge and this program with its simple and complete interface fits my bill nicely.

I also receive PayPal payments, and all I did was to have a separate PayPal bank account in Manager that I allocate PayPal payments to. when I receive payment on the invoice, I credit it with the full amount which the customer pays, then allocate PayPal’s fees to the bank charges expense. Every now and then I do a physical transfer of money from PayPal to my working account, and also transfer it in Manager as well.

It works for me…

9

Thanks so much VTS… I think that I’m starting to get the hang of it now :slight_smile: