Hi @lubos,
This is more of request than issue. We use project extensively within our business and generally like to see our profits in percentage. Are you able to add another column to show profits in percentage. This would be helpful.
Thanks
Profit as a % of what?
You can copy your report to Excel and add many different indicators and graphics
Manager is an accounting software and does not attempt to be an advanced reporting tool
Profit margin of each project shown as percentage: (Income - Expenses) / Income x 100 = Gross Margin.
We keep populating on excel to get this value. But would be better to have this info show a percentage. We don’t need any advance reporting.
This is a request specific to your business
Many businesses might have projects without income - just a way of managing expenses - others might use projects to monitor income
@Joe91 It might sound specific, but may be a good request.
Like many businesses might have projects with income and expenses like ours and it is always good to represent profits margin in percentage.
Businesses who don’t use it, can always untick the specific columns !!
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Why? Representation of raw data as propertions expressed as a percentage is often misleading and may diguise real issues. As @Joe91 explained further analysis and presentation of data is not the core function of Manager. Capturing, tracking and authenticating is the essence. Manager allows exporting of data through the copy to function and API to whatever application that is more suitable to further analyse and represent the data.
@eko @Joe91 @jasrodz I believe this request is valid. Adding such a column shouldn’t be too difficult, so I’m puzzled by the strong opposition the OP is facing. Percentages convey more information than raw figures and could also be useful in other areas of the software, such as order fulfilment.
If Projects were to have its report in the Reports section, including a profit margin would be great, especially since we already have an inventory profit margin report there. However, it would be more effective to integrate this feature directly into the Projects Tab. We could further enhance this by allowing users to enter a target profit margin for each project, which could then be compared to the actual profit margin. The objective is to help the user reduce workload.
For those who argue that Manager is solely an accounting software, it’s clear you haven’t been paying attention. Manager accounting software is also valuable for planning and comparing results to targets. Integrating planning and analysis tools is crucial for Manager accounting software.
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The validity of gross margin as defined makes many assumptions about how individual business enter project data. As a result this figure is likely to be misleading for many businesses.
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@Patch My focus is on businesses who operate with Job cards and apply job costing as well as businesses who use contract costing.
Sorry but I have been paying attention and rest assured Manager is inadequate as far as analysis and representation of data is concerned. Some would argue that graphical representation and timelines are more meaningful than proportions. There are also many financial ratios that Manager nor any other accounting software could ever cope with.
Also, I have often commented on Manager’s tendency of “creep” i.e adding more and more rather than keeping it simple and focused. So there are different users with different desires. Yours often seem to differ from mine. I wonder what I have been doing and thinking by visiting and commenting and supporting this forum to be cast away as someone who clearly hasn’t “…been paying attention…”
I disagree with you on this. Manager does show profits in $ value. If businesses don’t see this misleading then a simple % value of the profit shouldn’t be either. This could be individual business needs if they do want see this or not.
Manager does not have any field or standard quantity named as “Profit”.
As soon as it did, the majority of Manager users would recognise it did not accurately show the profit for their business.
Which is because Manager is an accounting program not an ERP (enterprise resource planning) program. Such programs require customisation for each businesses work flow. As such they address a completely different market price point.
Trying to address aspects of ERP software will increase not decrease user complaints.
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I believe Manager is infact one of the accounting software which provides a lot of options when it comes to the presentation of data, a recent enhancement is “Advanced Queries”.
Sorry but this is not a new way of presenting data but of filtering data. This is still a numerical representation. Manager uses mainly tables, but no graphics, charts, diagrams, heat-maps, box-plots, or flow-charts. There are hardly any statistical tools such as averages, trends, etc limited to only some totals.
I do not expect Manager to have any of these and yes Advanced Queries help to better prepare sets of data for further presentation and analysis. It also helps selecting data for trouble-shooting and audits. It is a great addition but does not change how Manager presents data.
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Mostly because a (large?) number of users of Manager are only learning here what accounting is all about. So, not only might complaints increase, but the average enquiry might be to “show and tell”.
This is surprising for me to hear.
A lot of work I’m doing is to create more value while making sure users who don’t care are not exposed to it.
For example, Edit Columns allows to add many more columns but it’s up to you what you choose. The purpose of Advanced Queries is to create some kind of generic framework where a lot of new unique reports can be created from your data without having them built-in under Reports tab.
Custom Fields significantly reduce number of fields on forms because any field that can be a custom field won’t be built-in one that is visible to everyone. Accounting systems that don’t support custom fields have a lot more fields than Manager.
As for some of the feature creep that exists, I’m aware of it. Just don’t have better implementation yet either due to lack of understanding what needs to be done or I know what needs to be done but not yet there. Either way, the feature creep will be eliminated eventually.
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Thanks @lubos this is exactly what I was talking about. So if we please have this feature implemented in some time would be great.
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Thank you for your work!