There has been improvements to automatic credit allocations from version 17.9.28 which is a welcome feature as the users are able to better record deposits from customers and to suppliers and still show the transaction in customer or supplier statements. this was not possible when creating a separate account for the deposits and the customers or suppliers were worried about the statement not showing the deposits as the statements considered only the Accounts receivable and Accounts payable.
While this has provided an advantage, there is a drawback too.
When the payment is received as a sum of few of the pending invoices made and the same is allocated to particular invoices, it shows as overpaid and a user has to manually edit, calculate and reallocate the excess payment to other pending invoices.
For example, there are following sales invoice and their total.
Invoice 1 - $553
Invoice 2 - $1254
Invoice 3 - $5235
Invoice 4 - $1221
Invoice 5 - $235
Invoice 6 - $125
Invoice 7 - $516
Invoice 8 - $134
Invoice 9 - $5489
Invoice 10 - $54
Invoice 11 - $1231
Invoice 12 - $3568
This totals to $19615
Customer pays $9139 for upto Invoice 1 to 7.
Now, when entering the payment its more than a headache as the user has to allocate the payment to every invoice matching the exact invoice value in a single receipt. adding more to the headache is the inability of the user to see the invoice details on the same screen.
Not selecting an invoice when making a receipt will automatically allocate the credit to pending invoices but the user will lose the ability to record deposits as mentioned earlier.
There are two suggestions to overcome this which will improve Manager even further.
Possibility to create a chart of accounts under liabilities and assets, say Customer Deposits and Supplier Deposits, which would enable to choose the customer or supplier when receiving or spending money?
at present the customer or supplier can be selected only when the Accounts receivable or Accounts payable account is selected.
To avoid the chances of users misusing this, maybe this can be implemented as a default rather than giving the user the ability to create such an account.
The form design needs modification to incorporate things like in the below example
here, the total payment received is entered in a separate box. the pending invoices are shown in separate table where the invoice total, the balance due and the payment applied towards the invoice is shown. the total payment received is automatically distributed according to the invoice age and the balance due. also, there is ability for the user to manually allocate the value to another pending invoice if needed.
Version 17.9.28 changed nothing in this respect. If you selected a transaction-type statement, both debits and credits have always shown. Only if you separated deposits from Accounts receivable/payable in self-created accounts did they not appear on statements. But again, this was not changed.
No, you can still leave the invoice number blank and Manager will allocate to oldest due date first. In fact, your later statement acknowledges this:
The overpayment situation you describe and need to make detailed allocations only applies when a specific invoice is chosen. Then, the entire amount is allocated there per your direction, giving the option to resolve the overpayment however you wish, rather than at Manager’s discretion.
The deposit is still recorded. Here is an example of a receipt where no invoice was specified. It shows up on the customer statement:
This is basically how things worked before you joined the forum. The accounts were called Customer credits and Supplier credits, and the workflow for using them was much more complex. This was streamlined in mid-2016.
that is what i said. even when it is a deposit, you have to select the Accounts receivable account. else this deposit will not show in the customer or supplier statement.
when the Accounts receivable account is selected and no invoice selected, the payment gets automatically allocated to the unpaid invoices.
when an invoice is selected, you have no option to see the outstanding amount of that invoice or the many invoices when you receive a single bulk payment.
can you imagine the number of screens you have to go back and forth when entering a single bulk payment received that has to be allocated to say 12 or 13 invoices so that the exact invoice amount is allocated.
when it is not allocated to any invoice under the Accounts receivable, it affects the balance due on the next invoice.
I understand your point, @sharpdrivetek. The way I read your earlier post, it seemed like you thought things had changed in this regard, in other words, that this was a new situation. I, too, believe there could be some improvements to the way deposits are handled. I liked the old Supplier/Customer credits accounts from the perspective of how things looked on the balance sheet, but they were awkward to use. The new approach is a major improvement in that respect. @lubos has mentioned some ideas for further improvements, though. Perhaps they will include your idea of specific designation of multiple invoices and/or deposit.
Except this whole design falls apart when customer pays 100,000 but you see on bank statement 99,900 because the bank took 100 in bank fees. Or when portion of the amount is for something entirely else. Or when amount paid is actually higher than the amount of all invoices because the reminder is some sort of prepayment for future work.
This is why Manager has never gone this direction. You think it solves one problem, then it creates another problem elsewhere. You end up with more complicated system for no gains.
Here is my thinking… if customer sends you remittance advice which indicates how the amount paid for invoices should be split, allocate payments against individual invoices. If customer doesn’t send you remittance advice, just allocate the amount paid to accounts receivable account without specifying an invoice (let Manager do the splitting). At no point do you need to know balances due on individual invoices.
If customer remittance advice is a lot of invoices and you really don’t want to enter those invoices (and amounts) individually, there is a shortcut.
When you view their customer statement in Manager, there is Copy to button.
This will let you copy all invoices from customer statement with their balances to new bank/cash transaction.
Here you can easily remove invoices which haven’t been paid by clicking on X button or change the amount if the amount paid was actually lower.
the example i provided was from an invoicing software and it has nothing to do with accounting.
In my suggestion i never stressed to have the receipt or payment forms to match exactly as in the example provided. It should just be a feature included in the present receipt and payments form. The ability of Manager to add another line for entering bank charges or any would automatically reduce that value from the total and only only the balance is considered for the Accounts receivable or Accounts payable. Similarly, if a higher payment is received this would automatically go to the Accounts receivable or Accounts payable just like it is now. Maybe the most recent invoice can be shown as Overpaid in this case. Or still allocate the excess amount to another account in a new line.
I wanted to allocate the payments to individual invoices specifically because i want the deposit amounts if any to be handled in a better way by Manager. Like i mentioned earlier having the same account for invoices and deposits is not efficient in handling the records. When a deposit is accounted in the Accounts receivable the balance due of next invoice is affected. If it is accounted under a different account, no such transaction is shown in the customer or supplier statement.
this can only be a workaround. As an efficient accounting solution, Manager should follow a single method for any type of transaction. In this case receipt and payment of money should be processed from the relevant modules only. What about in a multi user scenario where the user permissions are limited?
I have used this other software. It is available for both invoicing and accounting. I am new to Manager and still learning and do find it a little more complicated. As a basic user, I would say that the suggestion by @sharpdrivetek to include such features has merit. Although I will concede that I do not have the technical understanding of any issues it may cause. I found it simple to accept a payment, with the screen as displayed above. It selected todays date and the user selects the customer from the drop down box which then auto displays the total owed (as the expected payment) and displays all the unpaid invoices below. The user enters the amount being paid which is auto allocated to the oldest invoices. User can delete those amounts and apply payments as required to any invoice displayed or even not apply all the payment to invoices leaving some or all of the payment unapplied which is clearly displayed. It would be good to be able to have this in Manager and maybe for every customer at set up to also be auto allocated their own special account where overpayments go. I am probably way off here, but just my thoughts as a basic user.
