Looks perfect, but I’m BIAS - a change in usage is always initially strange but in a year from now
No problem with the tab, but perhaps the buttons could be just “New Account” ?
Depending on your Manager conventions
Here is one last bit of heresy. What if the tab were to be named just Accounts? Does that confuse users who would try to set up their chart of accounts there? Probably. But it eliminates the debate over cash versus money versus ???
I though just “Accounts” was good during all the discussions. But thought a very good/clear note and coin image or symbol should be used so not to be confused.
I would not use the word “accounts” @Tut That would imply chart of accounts and there are too many accounts that are not money related. Customer accounts, supplier accounts, chart of accounts etc. Accounts is just too generic.
I would say go with Money Accounts. I do agree it seems a little bit strange saying Money Accounts - I personally would just prefer the word Money but I see Lubos’s earlier point about identifying the tab. I suspect that the more you use it, then it will stop sounding a bit strange. It is effectively a new concept - like Bitcoin probably sounded a bit strange when initally used and now nobody thinks twice about it. Like with my company name - the more I used the name, the familiar and comfortable it sounded, but initially Dalacor also sounded strange to the ear when I said it. The more you use the concept Money Accounts the more it grows on you.
I prefer Money Accounts over Cash Accounts vastly. I don’t know anyone in my cultural identity that would think of credit cards and bank accounts as Cash - therefore Cash Accounts is not really accurate and I am not even sure what Bitcoins would be thought of - although its probably more like bank account - just electronic numbers on a computer.
Just an off topic question do you Americans refer to bank accounts as bank accounts as you have a lot more credit unions etc there. Maybe you just call it checking account or chequing account - or however its spelt.
Just for reference; in Dutch this tab has already long ago been translated to Liquide Middelen,
which translated back to english comes down to Working capital or Cash at bank and in hand, or liquid capital (according to dictionary)…
I suspect whatever you come up with, the Dutch will probably keep it this way.
I have to say, I’m with @Abeiku and @Brucanna on this one. I was taught in Accounting 101 that Cash is where your liquid money – be it at the bank (deposits) or in a tin box in your bottom drawer (currency) – appears on your balance sheet.
Cash works fine for me. Accounts makes no sense, because that sounds like it should include Accounts Receivable and Travel and other accounts. Money is vague, because everything is about money. Deposits makes sense to me, but I can see that easily be confused with deposits made by customers against future work. Liquid describes it well, but it’s not the least bit intuitive. Funds might make sense – or maybe Cash & Funds. Or perhaps Current Accounts.
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One other thought: If credit cards are the biggest source of confusion (some people might be able to think of bank accounts as Cash but can’t see credit cards as a negative form of Cash), then there could be one tab for Cash (to include currency + bank accounts) and another tab for Credit Cards. It sort of makes more sense to lump bank accounts under Cash and put credit cards separately under another tab, since the former group is an asset and the latter is a liability and can appear as such grâce à the new custom control accounts.
Or, if Manager is enhanced to handle loans payable in general, there could be a new tab called Loans or Loans Owed or Credit (to include credit cards + other lines of credit), separate from Cash (to include currency + bank deposits).
I also thought of Current Accounts. The problem with that is that charts of accounts often divide both assets and liabilities into current and long-term (or some variation on that theme), almost always using current assets to signify relatively liquid accounts, including cash, accounts receivable, inventory, prepaid items, etc., as opposed to property, plant, equipment, and so forth. The point here is that Current Accounts can be much broader than what we’re discussing.
So let’s consider typical accounting definitions of cash. I won’t bore you with every one I looked up. They are all very, very similar to Accountingdictionary.org’s:
Money in an immediately usable form: coins, banknotes and money deposited in a current account at a bank.
Accountingdictionary.org goes on to define Money as:
…the means used for discharging debts, making payments and measuring value.
And a cash account as:
…an account recording receipts of cash and cheques and payments of cash including deposits of money into the accounting entity’s bank.
All these definitions certainly cover bank accounts and match the way cash, cash on hand, and cash at bank have been used by Manager. One thing that stands out from my review is that no accounting treatise or dictionary regards credit cards as a form of cash or cash account. Yes, a credit card transaction results in a merchant/supplier being paid cash by the processing institution. But rather than discharging a liability, use of a credit card immediately creates one for the business entity.
I think the classical definitions of cash, money, and cash accounts can be stretched to include newer forms of exchange like Bitcoin. But I don’t think they can encompass things like credit cards. And credit cards have been the orphan children of Manager until the recent introduction of custom control accounts. We were basically forced to treat them as contra bank accounts.
I started this lengthy post with the idea I might be able to justify keeping the Cash Accounts name after all. I find I can’t justify that. So how about Cash & Credit Accounts? That would satisfy traditional usage yet still provide a home for credit card accounts. And I believe it would fit the space.
If you read the release notes on why Lubos combined the old bank tab and cash on hand tab, you will understand that it would not be desireable to have one tab for cash and one for credit cards. Just for the sake of the name of the tab, you lose functionality as described below in Lubos Release Notes. I support having one tab for all transactions to do with money be it banking, credit cards, petty cash, bitcoin etc for the reasons explained in the release notes.
I don’t think that Money is vague because everything is about money - that defines why the word money is actually the best name because it covers everything you can think of from Bitcoin to credit cards and even loans would come under Money. I don’t think Funds would cover loans per se.
Current Accounts in many countries means your main banking account - known as a chequing account in America I believe.
Have you gone off the term Money accounts for some reason. As I said before I don’t like the word cash in relation to a bank account. Cash may technically mean a bank account in accounting terms, but many of Manager’s users are not accountants and what I like so much about Manager is the naming strategy with business owners in mind. Most people when they think of Cash will not think of Bank Accounts or Bitcoin.
However I will acknowledge that Cash & Credit Accounts does sound good. 
Yes, I think so. Because credit cards (as well as some other short-term obligations) are best handled here, I think it is important to have a title that reflects what is actually in the tab. You are correct that non-accountant users might not be familiar with the concept of a bank account as a form of cash, but that doesn’t mean the application should cater to that lack of familiarity. One of the things @lubos has done over time is try to move users towards proper accounting techniques. (Think of the restructuring of the Summary page.)
After it was first proposed, I liked Money Accounts for its parallelism to the functions within the tab. But after looking up the true definitions of things, I came to understand that some things being handled under this tab are not actually money, despite how we may use them. Credit cards are not, although debit cards are.
So Cash & Credit Accounts seemed to fit the bill. I could also see @Jon’s idea of a loan tab working, though I would not like to go to two places to transfer money from a bank account to pay off a credit card. The fact that we use credit cards like money makes it very convenient to establish and track the accounts under the same tab.
I think it boils down to whether Lubos wants to have something like Money Accounts that all users understand what it means in everyday terms and different cultures and would cover credits etc in everyday Usage or whether he wants to go with a more technically correct accounting term for something like credit cards. To me as a non accountant, I think of credit cards as money as I am spending money on my credit card or on my debit card - but I am still spending money from my viewpoint.
I favour the non accountant end user approach to the tab name as this is what the entire program is based on. Naming strategy for non accountants.
The summary page change ultimately ended up being a good change once sub accounts were introduced (and once the concept was properly explained) because it allowed users to categorise income, expense, asset and liabilities into groups that made sense for their business or home accounting. I think the change was also implemented to align the structure of the chart of accounts with the summary page so that there was consistency and this ended up making the program simpler for users. I think the Releases Notes in the forum would have been really good when the Summary Page was changed to explain properly how to use the Summary Page.
Well @lubos has enough suggestions for what he wants to name the Cash Accounts Tab. At the end of the day, we will all get used to whatever the tab is called.
@Tut true the economic substance of credit card is that, it create liabilities for the company which will have to be settled with Cash itself. In other words, money is supposed to be exchanged for assets or settle liabilities or accrued expenses. Credit cards facilitates the the obtaining of asset through liabilities.
If someone gives you a shopping/gift card of say £2000, you cant classify it as Money or Cash on hand even though it very liquid, can you?
What is the difference between Cash, Funds, and money?
I see all the other credits and what have yous as a means to spend or access cash itself
The discussion can continue into the next year.
I say let call it Cash Accounts.
The user decides what to do with the features of the software. The guides should tell users things the feature can accomplish, but the name should reflect the classic nature or use.
I would say that if it is unrestricted, you should classify it as cash. It is just as liquid. An example would be a pre-paid VISA debit card given as a bonus for a purchase.
Now, if the shopping/gift card can only be used at one merchant, you probably should not classify it as cash, because it is not as liquid. Then it is more like a discount at the time of the next purchase. So it could be classified as a supplier credit. Still an asset, but not cash.
A good Politian “only” ever poses questions when they know they will get the answer they want.
If Manager had had Cash Accounts & Loan Accounts tabs from the beginning then there wouldn’t have been this discussion as the need for “Cash” Custom Control Accounts may not have arisen.
The combining of Cash on Hand & Cash at Bank was however a positive simplification
I think just Money is consistent with the other tabs. It’s simple and covers cash, credit and bank. I believe that anybody looking at the figure on the tab would realise that for example ‘5’ would indicate 5 accounts and not 5 dollars…
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Furthermore, when you click on Money from the summary tab, the greyed out tab name will read ‘Money’ with the button next to it ‘New Account’.
Probably, because they only see positive balances as cash accounts. On the same basis they probably don’t see overdrafts as cash accounts either - yet overdrafts only ever contain cash transactions. They would probably classify both as Loan Accounts. Credit cards are no more then overdrafts operated my a card instead of being operated by a cheque book.
My bank provides an overdraft with a limit
My bank provides a credit card with a limit
The payment to the merchant is in cash. The payment to the credit card provider is in cash. There are no non-cash transactions involved. The timing difference between these cash transactions is recorded as a liability in the BS .
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Hi All !
Perhaps it’s good idea to rename it just “Payments”.
I think that everybody can in this cases understand thats under this link you can receive money and spend money.
Of course there can be also some clearing account where you dont pay or receive any money, example when you have same partner as customer and supplier. Then you make with this company an agreement and clear open positions.
My idea is to keep it simple for everyone. People from financial world would to understand it any way and of course those persons who are not so familiar with finances.
With kind regards
Gunnar