Problems with Cash Summary

1

At some point recently, changes and discrepancies appeared on the Cash Summary report. Comparing reports to previously printed versions for the same dates reveals many differences.

Under Inflows, Customer credits and various income accounts to which sales were allocated no longer appear. Instead, Accounts receivable is listed in their place. The new entry, however, does not equal the total of the entries it replaces. As a result, the Total Inflows summation is different. Some of these changes may be the result of different thinking about what should go into this category.

Under Outflows, Billable expenses is different from what it was before. And the outflow from Retained earnings (which represents draws for a sole proprietor) is completely missing. So Total Outflows is not just different, but definitely wrong.

Whether or not one considers the makeup of Total Inflows and Total Outflows to be correct, the Net Increase (Decrease) in Cash Held as shown in the report is not the difference between the two. However, the Net Increase figure is correct, so Manager seems to be calculating it correctly, but not displaying things correctly. And that calculation does not apparently depend on the Total Inflows and Total Outflows shown on the report, but on some underlying summation.

@lubos, can you please explain why the makeup of the report has changed? And can the mathematical errors be corrected?

2

The first issue is with missing retained earnings. Report had to be re-written from scratch when custom control accounts have been introduced. I forgot that retained earnings account can be used on cash transactions. That would cause discrepancy you have observed.

Check the latest version (16.8.17) where it should be fixed.

As for figures being different, there are actually two ways to calculate this report. When you receive money from customer for invoices, I can simply show inflow as Accounts receivable or analyze invoices and increase total inflow for all accounts used within those invoices. E.g. if invoice is for sale of inventory items, then total inflow would be shown as Inventory - sales, not Accounts receivable. The current version doesn’t do this though.

3

Sorry for the delayed response. Somehow, I missed your answer when you posted it.

Yes, now things show correctly as far as difference between inflows and outflows.

I understand the difference. After comparing both approaches, I like the new one better. In particular, it accounts more visibly for expense claims as inflows and billable expenses as outflows. So overall, it is more intuitive to interpret.