The latest version (20.5.72) is adding new general ledger engine and I’d like some feedback on this.
Please enable new engine on Summary screen by checking Enable New Summary Screen
This is harmless option. You can revert anytime back.
When you enable the option, the figures could be different (hopefully not). If they are, please let me know.
If you can, please use new Summary screen to test it out… here is what’s different (I hope better) in new Summary screen.:
Drilling-down now works properly into every control account. Previously when you’ve tried to drill-down into accounts such Billable time or Fixed assets - accumlated depreciation, you’d get general ledger transactions. Now transactions are grouped by their sub-account within every control account.
If you are using multiple currencies, drilling-down into control accounts will group sub-accounts by their currency first, then by sub-account itself. This means foreign-currency sub-accounts will now show balances and transaction amounts in their foreign currency rather than the base currency. E.g. drilling down into EUR foreign currency bank account will show transactions in EUR, not in base currency like before.
When viewing list of transactions while drilling-down, there are new columns based on the context. For example, drilling-down into expense accounts will show bank account or supplier name. Drilling-down into income accounts will show inventory item or customer etc. It depends on the account itself what columns will be visible.
This has thrown entries into my Suspense accounts and changed some of the account balances.
When I pay my employee, I add a line to the payment for the bank charges levied when the payment is made.
This now appears in the Suspense Account (UID rather than name) rather than the Bank Charges Account
Server Edition has all the symptoms mentioned above for retained earnings, Suspense, UID etc. Notice there is a variation in Tax Payble too. That maybe because of things going into suspense.
It has also caused very small changes to my Accounts receivable and Inventory - cost (23c and 3c differences).
I have a custom clearing account for dealing with freight-in costs (as described here). This had a balance of zero, but with the experimental summary screen now has a very large negative balance.
@lubos, with the new screen (v20.5.74) on a real business, every single sales invoice ever created has moved to Suspense. When drilling down on the Suspense balance, the bread crumbs show the UUID in place of the Suspense account’s name. All customers and every line item in the erroneously moved sales invoices still show correct account allocations, regardless of where else I look at them.
On multiple test businesses, I find such a strange collection of errors I cannot characterize them. Errors include:
Some, but not all, sales invoices moved to Suspense
Multiple entries in Suspense for a single sales invoice, all with amounts that do not match any line on the actual sales invoice
Fixed assets - depreciation balance where none exists in the regular display. Strangely, in this case, the new screen seems correct and the old one incorrect. This anomaly carries over to the Fixed assets, accumulated depreciation account.
Admittedly, some of the errors on test businesses may be the result of butchery while exploring other users’ problems and simulating test cases. (Entries sometimes bear little relationship to actual situations.) That may contribute to the difficulty in characterizing them. But there is no question there are differences between results displayed with the two engines.
The new summary screen matches the existing summary screen when the accrual basis of accounting is selected. When the accounting method is changed to a cash basis it does not exclude billable time and billable time movement.
Retained earnings should not require drill-down. It is arrived at by calculating undistributed net profit. Instead of drilling down on the retained earnings transactions it is more helpful to drill-down on income and expense figures that are unusual. Perhaps the equity section of the summary should show the summary of changes in equity.
