Merged bank accounts and cash accounts tabs

In the latest version (21.4.90) bank accounts and cash accounts tabs are being merged (again).

I’ve realized the way both bank accounts and cash accounts tabs fit with the rest of the system, they ought to be merged after all.

Previously, when customizing the business features, individual tabs were presented in kind of flat/compact view

and it was getting difficult to navigate due to sheer amount of options (and more is coming)

When we merge bank accounts and cash accounts under the same tab, we can present tabs in hiearchical order.

The fact tabs can be neatly fit into a hiearchy will be leveraged in the future.

This change also elegantly solves recent issues in user permissions where administrator wants to control access to selected bank accounts or cash accounts.

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All very well except :frowning: after downloading and installing Manager Desktop 21.4.91 in Windows 10 64-bit

Some of my businesses work but now this one

One bank account and 4 cash accounts

I get the same internal error on just one of my businesses when clicking on the Bank and Cash Accounts tab. The other businesses all work fine. The business that does not work has 1 bank account under Cash at bank, 1 bank account under a custom control account (under Liabilities as a credit card), and 1 cash account. The businesses that do work also have a mix of accounts of those same types.

I do not understand the error message’s reference to C drive, as I am using a Mac and have no such drive.

3 of my 9 do not work, the other 6 do

Should be fixed in the latest version (21.4.92)

Now works on all my businesses.

Two things.

Bug

I downloaded the latest to see what it looks like. I only have one bank account. But for some reason the bank and cash accounts tab is showing two accounts. One blank name with zero balances and no transactions and the second one is my actual bank account.

Question

Are you thinking of carrying across this hierarchical order in the customize section to the actual tabs. This would match customize and be consistent and second it is basically what was being proposed in the Manager Navigation Feedback discussion topic anyway. I will have to check the discussion, but your hierarchy (from memory) seems to be very similar to what ealfardan was suggesting in that topic.

PS - Shouldn’t expense claims be underneath employees?

No, because expense claims can go to proprietors, capital account owners, or even complete outsiders — anyone who buys things for the business with personal funds.

Fixed in the latest version (21.4.93)

I’m just recognizing the tabs can be organized into a hierarchy. What was proposed in that topic is taking it too far. I see hierarchy such as credit notes don’t make sense without sales invoices and sales invoices don’t make sense without customers. But customers make sense without sales invoices.

For example, it will be perfectly fine to enable just Customers and nothing underneath if all you do is cash sales but want to keep track who is buying from you. You don’t need invoices, quotes, orders, billable time or anything.

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@Tut Noted. As I never use expense claims didn’t realise that it was for more than re-reimbursing employees.

@lubos downloaded latest version. I can confirm that this has fixed the extra bank account issue. I assume that this is because I do not have a Cash account - only a bank account.

I don’t want to distract or divert this topic with the Tabs discussion as the focus should be on this merging of bank and cash - which I agree with by the way. It never ever made sense to me to split the tabs in the first place.

However, I will make one point. Your point regarding just having Customers and nothing else underneath it is a perfectly valid use for business. But the discussion that myself and others were making was more about designing the hierarchical design of the tab structure. We never implied that users would have to enable sales invoices, quotes etc to use the Customer tab. Obviously there is no value in enabling quotes if you never use it and I am not suggesting that.

What you have done for example in the customise view is linked Receipts, Payments, Bank Recon and Inter-account transfers under bank and cash as you cannot have these without a bank or cash account. This also mirrors what we proposed. However, as you pointed out, you don’t have to have Bank Recon, Inter Account Transfers enabled.

The question at some point you will need to think about would be - whether what we proposed would work if you only had say bank and cash enabled, but not Bank Reconciliation or Inter Account Transfer? That is something for you to think about long term. To me it makes perfect sense to have one bank and cash tab and underneath that or within that tab to have bank recon, inter account transfers, payments, receipts - providing the user ticks those boxes - because all those functions relate to the bank/cash account.

I don’t want to hijack this topic with that discussion so I will stop here. The topic is about the merging of the bank/cash tab.

I like the way that deselecting an item removes it from the tabs (even if it has entries). This means that rarely used tabs can be removed temporarily and brought back if needed. I hope this is a permanent feature.

Edit:
Oooops, no it doesn’t it removes them when in the customise screen but puts them back (those with entries) when update is clicked.

Could this be a feature though?

That’s correct for now.

Yeah, the fact tab has data takes precedence over your preferences. Maybe tabs which are disabled but have data could be moved to the bottom and have some kind of “inactive” state just like what is already implemented on most screens when viewing items that are inactive.

I have to say I like where this is going. This change introduced two solutions for tab proliferation which are:

  1. Merging of similar tabs. I personally prefer this solution especially since @lubos figured out how to keep them separate for user permissions. Does this mean that we can see other mergers again? Maybe Fixed Assets and Intangibles, or maybe Receipts and Payments? Or am I getting ahead of myself here?

  2. Grouping of related tabs. I also like this very much, in fact I have pushed for it whenever I could’ve, but – seeing some users’ fierce pushback in the last thread, I started to think that this might be more of a user preference thing after all. For customize menu this is no big deal, but for actual tabs maybe a compromise between flat and grouped tabs could suit all users, or – better yet, users can choose anyway they like.

Anyways, I am really looking forward to how this is going to turn out.

Thanks @lubos

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Receipts and Payments should stay separate for sales and purchasing departments? But fully agree on Bank and Cash. I never saw the point of them being separate tabs as they are functionally the same thing.

I think that customise shows a direction that is possible for grouping of tabs if a way could be found for a presentation view for “sub tabs” that may or may not be enabled as per business requirements. Eminently doable.

If there was an Admin tab, then less frequently used tabs like Folders and Attachments Tab would not be sitting there unused for 99% of the time. I think making tabs inactive or disabling them is not the answer. The question is why is there a tab for something that is hardly ever used.

I agree with you. I like this latest change. Whether it will remain I don’t know. The bank and cash were one tab some years ago, then were split, then merged again and then split again and now merged again!

Separate forms, separate user permissions, but shared tab. How’s that sound?

My preference is separate tabs in groups (static defined by the program).

For business customised so have lots of tabs in a particular group, allow users to collapse a group if that fits their current work activities.

Reasons

  • For business with few tabs it enable all to be displayed and not buried.

  • Constant tab layout to facilitate learning applicable over all businesses

  • Displays program structure to all users

  • For Business with lots of tabs enables, it simplifies the display and enables it to fit on one screen

Edit
Having all tabs displayed and not buried also applies / Helps business with lots of tabs enabled but a user with very limited access → they would see just the few tabs they have access to all at the top level and all in standard locations

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Yes, I think being able to make rarely used tabs (with data) inactive and have them move to the bottom of the list is a good idea. Better than having them disappear until reactivated.

I would still like to see the main tab for each hierarchy group be expandable/collapsible.

Nice. Preferably, the option to collapse all is available and saved to user file.

Cash accounts not coming in drop down when making a receipt or payment. And diappeared from user permissions aswell.

User permissions also got disturbed as user permissions show no access now which was previously granted for bank and cash accounts