I issue invoices to members of our NFP part of which is revenue and part liability as we collect monies on behalf of another org. If I go to “settings” to create a new invoice item, it will not allow me to select the appropriate liability account which I have set up for this purpose. Can anyone help with a solution because this is fundamental to how our org. works?
Can you provide more details, please? You can definitely select some, though not all, liability accounts for sales invoice items. (You can’t for example, select Accounts receivable, because that is a control account with subaccounts tied to individual customers. So a sales invoice item cannot know that in advance.) You may have to create a new liability account specifically to receive these funds.
But I’m not sure you are accounting correctly for this anyway. Are you, in effect, collecting money for this third party and holding it in escrow? Or do you do billing for the third party, or what? More information about the purpose of what you call liabilities and the money flow will help sort out the proper handling within Manager.
As a quick example, I can think of situations where the use of Billable Expenses might be appropriate.
What you have done should work. I have done an example in the following screenshots The steps were:
1 Created the Liability Acct - Other Org Trust Acct
2 Created the Sales Invoice Item - Other Org Fees
3 Created the Sales Invoice
@Reicott - A thing to note, within Sales Invoice Items, the account selections are listed alphabetically - not P&L first then BS as occurs in other parts of Manager.
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Okay, thanks Tut. The situation is that we are a club associated with a national body. The latter provides insurance for our activities (flying powered model aircraft). As a consequence the invoice we need to send to members includes 2 parts, i.e. our subscription component and an insurance levy on each member which we collect on behalf of the national body. We forward this levy to the latter which then arranges insurance and issues a card to each member stating that they are fully covered. It is an international requirement that members must have this certification before they can participate.
As a consequence, when we receive the total amount back from members the levy component is a liability to our particular club. I have set up a standard Accrual Chart of Accounts which includes a Current Liability account “National Body Insurance Funds Payable”. When I raise the invoice I am attempting to post the subs component to current asset a/c “Members Subs” (i.e. a standard debtors a/c) and the levy component to the above Current Liability a/c. What happens is that I raise the invoice and nominate the Members’ Debtor a/c for the subs component ok and then add a line to the invoice to show the levy component. However the system does not allow me to see the current liability account when I try to select which account to post to. It shows me some of the COA items but excludes the one I have set up for this purpose. I suppose I could leave the field blank and the difference when then post to the default imbalance “suspense” a/c. Not my preferred option but it may work? What do you suggest. I am an accountant by profession although now retired.
Manager can will do exactly what you want as demonstrated in the screen shots above, have you tried duplicating the above process.
Can you send a screenshot of this section of the COA. Your account should be visible in both the Sales Invoice Item account box and the Sales Invoice account box as illustrated in the screen shots.
Why ? - by putting the “income” to the Debtors account you are cancelling out the invoice.
When you create an invoice and nominate a customer (member), that creates the entry to the Members’ Debtor a/c - the line entries allocate your clubs income and the insurance levy. Please send a screen shot of an invoice.
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The below invoice puts 30 to Member A’s debtors account, 20 to your clubs income and 10 to the liability acct for insurance levy
The BS/P&L would look like this
Without showing all the screen shots, I tried doing essentially the same as @Brucanna. I got the same results. In other words, everything worked fine, just as @Brucanna describes. So if it isn’t working for you, I have to believe you are making an error somewhere in your entry process. You’ll probably feel silly when you realize what it is. 
I also concur with @Brucanna’s questioning of assigning the subscription line item to an asset account. That subscription fee is your club’s income, so it should go to an income account. And within Manager, the act of raising the invoice for a specific customer is all you need to do to increment that customer/member’s subaccount in Accounts receivable.
Also, now that I know more about what you are doing, let me amplify on my comment about Billable Expenses. Since that module is designed for recording expenses you pay on behalf of a customer, it would only be appropriate if the national body billed your club for insurance for all members. You could then enter individual member’s fees as billable expenses. When you invoiced them, you could pull in the billable expense. But it doesn’t sound like that’s what you are doing. I suspect each member’s insurance fee is an individual thing, since new members might join at any time. So… @Brucanna’s approach seems the best one. And it will work if you get the mechanics right.
Thanks guys. What I am doing is exactly as outline by Brucanna. My problem was that the liability a/c
(other org fees in Brucanna’s example) was not showing in the drop down box. I typed in the name of my Liability a/c and it worked fine so all is good for that problem.
I apologise for all the effort you guys have put into this but I have just started on the system so still feeling my way. Your response times and help have been awesome and very very much appreciated.
I’m not clear about what you are saying, @Reicott. I assume the dropdown box you mentioned is the one for account selection for the line item for the insurance levy. You say your liability account was not showing, but it definitely should be. then you say you typed in the name of the liability account and it worked fine. Do you mean the account appeared when you started typing? If so, you are seeing the result of the autocomplete capability. The reason you couldn’t see the account you created is that you didn’t scroll down far enough. Liability accounts are the last ones listed on that particular screen. There is a scroll bar on the right side of the dropdown box.
Let me know if what I just wrote makes sense and explains your problem.
I, too, was posting agency fees as a liability on my invoices.
I collect fees from customers (part payment for me and part payment for the agency).
The system worked perfectly until the latest upgrade and now none of the figures make sense. For example, where the total owing to the agency for this week should have been 126.00, the liabilities show a 6.00 credit. I am totally confused because it worked until I downloaded the latest version of Manager.
You need to post more information before anyone can help you sort this out. Post screen shots of the entry screen for the transaction, then the finished form. If possible, post before and after shots of the Summary showing the relevant accounts.
A few other details will be helpful, such as whether there is a Suspense account showing on the Summary page.
If it has been a while since your last update, you may be seeing a change in how Accounts receivable is structured. See this release note: