Hi I have never done this before so please bear with me, Firstly I’d like to complement your company on developing this excellent program, I have tried others and they just don’t compare to the ease and simplicity of yours, it has made starting, tracking, developing and increasing my business absolutely easy. I do however have a few suggestions/ questions on developing the program. Mostly it has to do with the issuing receipts and how this all works, I realise that this topic has been posted a few times and I have read a lot in the manuals and Forums on the topic, but none that I have read seem to address the issue that I have observed. Let me try to put you in the picture, so you can understand where I and coming from in this topic, lets say I have a new customer, easy enough I enter all relevant details into the customer database, name, number address, email, etc. Now they wish me to quote for them, once again easy, go to the quote page and select the customer, all details are in, add the details of the job and a price, done select to email to the customer the email is done thanks to the email templates page and the address is there already. I win the quote and do the job, then I simply click and copy the quote over to the invoices page and its all there and done, once again email the client, once again the email address is there and the templates page has the email mostly done, send this off all good, Now so far the program has made my job really easy and reduced my paper work time by at least three quarters, but this is where in my opinion the program comes a little unstuck in its seamless streamlined precision, the customer pays me, and I import my bank account transactions directly to the program, I select to payment, select accounts receivable, the customer and the invoice it is paying, then comes the issue, click update and view the PDF, the receipt in question has no customer details, no description of what is being paid for, and then when you go to email the invoice the email address isn’t filled in and there is no template which fills in 90% of the email. From this I could be observed that the process up until payment by the client is perfect, easy and streamlined which it is as I said no other program I have used comes close to the ease of this one, how ever once the customer has paid this is where it gets a little messy, I have currently for the last two years been manually inputting the information, but I have always wondered why, which has led to this rather long yet pointed observation about the program, the quote easily goes into an invoice with a few clicks is it possible to do this with the receipts as well I wonder, even with out the quote you can still create a customer and make an invoice easily, and once they pay I would have thought by selecting the accounts receivable client name and invoice all the relevant info would automatically transfer to the receipts and then the email would be filled in via a template with the customer address filled in due to selecting the customer in the accounts receivable field on the edit page. I realise you guys are still developing and changing the program over time which is awesome, and I am not angry, cynical or simply making waves, these are simply observations from prolonged constant use, so the suggestion/ question is, is this something that can be put into the program and developed to make it streamlined and precise from quote issue through to receipt issue, is it possible when receiving money/ categorizing transactions that by inputting the customer and invoice number all information about the customer and information from the invoice could transfer over to the receipt, and also a template be developed for the receipt emails, or is it possible that when a payment has been made for the invoice and the program detects it has been paid to set up a separate section like the quote and invoices tabs, where recepts can be set from and all customer info and invoice info is automatically transferred to the receipt (like from the quote to the invoice). The reason I am making a fuss over this to be clear, is that it is a Legal requirement for me to issue a receipt, and I am sure I am no the only one of your users with this problem, at the moment fixing and sending receipts takes quite a while at least three or four times longer and doing an invoice or quote, and if I have a dozen to issue as you can imagine this takes up some time. Now I am not a computer programmer, as I said before I am a user with and observation, so the final questions are, is this possible to do with your program, and would you be interested in developing the program to fix and streamline the program start to finish. Thankyou for reading and taking the time to do so, I look forward to discussing this issue and my observations with you (hopefully in shorter explanations)
I personally think you are making too much of the receipt. The receipt generated when money is received from the sales invoice can be emailed directly while viewing the receipt. The receipt clearly states the invoice number that has been paid.
You also have the option of sending a copy of the sales invoice showing amount credited and remaining balance due (presumably zero), along with Paid in Full stamp.
Why do you need more. The customer already has the details on the sales invoice.
I acknowledge your opinion, and you may have a point regarding my making to much of the receipt, however some clients can be picky when it come to these things as we all know, looking at the receipt as they stand it seems like they lack some information, my understanding of the whole system is that the invoice is a request for payment and the receipt is an acknowledgement of said payment or payments what ever the case may be, and as far as I am aware the receipt should contain some information about the services provided (this is law), not a complete breakdown but at least a summery or heading about what was paid not just the invoice number paid, this has been my experience personally.
Also I am aware about the emailing the receipt directly from the receive money option, this is not an issue or in question, I find it strange however that despite the fact you put in the accounts receivable option and the clients name and the invoice number you still have to manually put in the payee name whish is always the invoiced client you also have to manually input the description heading (which in a nut shell would suffice as a services description, the other description field if left blank auto puts in a name and invoice number which is fine) it seems to me al this could be auto filled in like going from a quote to a invoice because you are already selecting the details when you select them all in the accounts receivable row selections, and then no client info is on the receipt itself except the name, also when it comes to emailing the receipt after selecting the various client details for the receipt you still have to manually input the clients email address unlike the invoice which auto fills this in, and then the there is no option to make a standardized body text for sending a receipt by email you have to write out and entirely new email every time once again unlike an invoice whish has an email template and you simply input the clients name and any other small edits, which saves time, I was just wondering if some of these time savers could be put over to the receipt to stream line it and make it more effective and time saving. Also you make a point about sending the invoice with the stamp, you make a point, and this is a good feature if the client is making payments to an account, ideally it would be good if when you send a receipt for a payment you could attach an updated invoice to the same email instead of having to send two separate emails which could be confusing for some clients.
Hi, it is just one of my little opinion… instead of giving receipt acknowledgment of payment received, why don’t you give them customer statement? In customer statement, it will show everything you needed. The customer name, details and etc. In fact, it will show anything is list details of the invoices and payments details. You may try to discover more if it meets your requirements. I’m doing this for all of my clients. And it’s turn out just fit enough for the customer as for their references. The statement will be emailing to customer every month, just in case they have made several purchased in the same month, it will nicely capture in just one statement. Rather than issue receipt every time they made a purchase, it is much better to send them the statement of account by monthly.
I don’t know how did you figure out this thing helpful enough. But you can consider trying and it will make your life easier than before.
@TOJJ, consider the entire process from a double-entry accounting perspective. A sales invoice debits Accounts receivable and credits various income accounts. As you said, it is the request for payment. But more importantly, this is the record that details what has been or will be delivered, and to whom. Customer accounts are actually subaccounts of Accounts receivable.
The receipt, on the other hand, records a transaction debiting a cash account and crediting Accounts receivable. It actually has nothing to do with goods or services delivered. It settles the debt created by the sales invoice. So by listing the invoice paid, it gives all necessary information. Your cash account includes no information about goods or services, but only money in or out. That movement of money is what the receipt records.
What you ask would be a complete restructuring of the program and, indeed, of double-entry accounting.
You have said twice that what you want is required “by law” in your location. Personally, I doubt there is a law requiring that a receipt repeat all details of transactions underlying the invoice or invoices it pays. A receipt merely acknowledges transfer of the money, entirely separate from requests for payment for goods or services.
Image that you are doing regular, frequent business with a customer. You make deliveries several times per week and present a sales invoice for each delivery with 8 or 10 line items. Once per month, the customer pays off these 10-15 invoices. Would you really want your receipt to list 150 line items all over again? I doubt it. Nor would your customer find this useful. An acknowledgement that you have received payment for Invoices numbered XX through YY is sufficient. In fact, in most places, the bank record of the paid check is enough by itself.
Thankyou for that explanation, it has led me to do additional research and I now have a clearer understanding of the system, despite constant use I recognise I still have a lot to learn about this kind of thing and am always seeking to increase my knowledge base. However I still feel the two suggestions of putting in client details to the receipt, and being able to standardize a receipt email for ease of use valid. For example the in Invoice form you simply select the customer and then the address fields are filled in which of course leads to the email having auto filled in, all this stems from the customer database, such an option in the receipt form area would be good, perhaps instead of the payee manual input section, as I said earlier the payee is in my experience always the customer anyway. This would polish of the receipts and make them more professional, it shouldn’t mess with the program structure, its simply adding a customer address field and email template option for the receipt
To be clear I am a contractor so I send the client an invoice for work completed which they pay in one bulk payment, to which I then send a receipt, I never have the issue multiple invoices on a receipt simply because in my field of work and the frequency of new and different customer it doesn’t happen, and on the odd chance a job goes on longer or has stages they simply receive multiple invoice over time which are always paid before the next invoice issued
What you need to understand is that sales invoices interact with the customer database. Receipts interact with the cash account database. That is a simplification, and the terminology is not rigorous. But as an illustration, maybe it will help you understand why your idea is a bigger change than you think.
I see your right that does help to understand why the changes are massive, I was under the impression the customer databases might be able to be integrated easily with the receipts, apparently not, that’s ok though these were meant only as constructive suggestions as I said I had no idea if they were possible, it seems either no or the process and work involved for so little gain makes it almost redundant, thanks for your time
I agree. Ease of use and speed of use. Others have talked about this on the forum also. I am hoping it is being considered / looked at by @Lubos.
Our use case:
Example: We are a service based business. We have a contract with Ace Care Pty Ltd who will email our office a Job Order/PO for their client. Our office will enter the client details including address and email address into Manager. Our service field technician will attend the clients address to do the job. We will invoice Ace Care Pty Ltd for the labour component. The client will pay for materials, often on the spot in cash. For our service field technician who has to issue a receipt it would certainly speed things up to have the address auto-populate and an email template for those who want their receipt emailed instead of printed. The field technician will often be doing this from the front seat of their vehicle and they are on a schedule to get to their next job, so for us it would be great to see this implemented in some manner, whether as an option or in some other way.
In my own situation I send a receipt for payment to which I just acknowledge ‘Payment of Invoice Number …’ and would find it quite helpful if the ‘Receipt’ form was able to populate the email address and address from the customer database. I do not need details of the invoice and agree that this is not necessary.
Issuing the receipt I feel gives the customer the knowledge that the money has been received and also gives the opportunity to add a ‘Thank You’ or information on any promotions etc. We are a very small company and like a personal approach.
Absolutely fantastic program, thank you developers for all your hard work.