Hello, is it possible to streamline the account setting?
Currently accounts are setup from two source: control accounts and chart of accounts.
Is it possible to make data on chart of accounts as the source for cash & banks, customers, suppliers, fixed assets, inventory, etc instead of having to set them up separately on control accounts?
Also is it possible to enable cash and bank transaction on manual journal? this would make inputting the starting balance of an already existing company easier to do. (as of now we have to separate the cash account and the other aset, liabilities, and capital account).
It might also help when purchasing fixed asset. As of now, our options are either setup a new supplier and another control account (so that we can purchase fixed assets by cash or by debt), or through manual journal if it’s from debt, and through payments if it’s paid in full.
Perhaps you should delay teaching about software you clearly do not understand. While control accounts are a powerful and flexible feature of the program, you can actually set up and run quite complicated business structures without ever being aware that they exist. Many businesses—possibly most—can operate with only the default control accounts, which require no intervention by the user.
You’re correct that manager would create default account on almost everything. But my friends are working on an already running business which requires specific accounts to appear on their financial reports for some transaction, as per their own charts of account.
This one need adjustment on the control account settings otherwise for example all cash balance no matter from what source would appear as “Cash & cash equivalents” on the report.
I’m not saying the software is flawed in any way. In fact it’s the best one I’ve ever used personally, It’s just a bit unique in that you require to set up some account from different menus. Most that I knew of are connected to one data bank of account.
You focus on Bank and Cash control accounts, but whenever you enable in Customize a function like Fixed Assets it allows you to create Control Accounts for these. The flexibility and power this gives is tremendous and indeed unique. Once you know what to do it is not difficult and it is comparable to when people who were used to Word Perfect long ago and needing to press F6 for bold text in Word click on the B or use CTRL+B (Windows) or CMD+B (Mac). It is different but what Word did is add the possibility to not even have to use a keyboard but the mouse for this. Similarly, there may be equal functionality in Manager and others but the approaches are different.
Manager prefers flexibility and customizablity as there are so many different types of businesses, users and authorities that indeed it requires the users to do more of the modifications but Manager gives the tools.
See it as Excel, someone creates complicated multiple worksheet-interlinked interfaces while others keep it to a simple worksheet.
The uniqueness is in the powerful customization options which actually seem to be dwindling under customer pressure such as the now optional Custom Themes and other Obsolete features that have not yet been replaced with similar or better alternatives. The argument was that the customization of the themes was too complicated. So solution: Make it obsolete altogether. I fear similar soon will happen with the Custom Reports. Indeed they are so called support burdens similarly to email. Also there PDF generation obsolete and no alternative to send attachments. So whilst Manager was and still is unique and powerful it unfortunately moving more mainstream and thereby losing features and flexibility.
Let’s speak from design perspective. By making all account setting on one place instead of scattering them on multiple menus, as of currently:
Almost all balance sheet account needs to be added through control account, each with their own respective menu. Except for tax payable for the tax code which for some reason had to be added from chart of account settings in order to link.
The rest, which is profit loss accounts, can be added through chart of accounts.
You can add balance sheet accounts from chart of account but it would be useless if you want to let’s say link them to another data like customers.
I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just creating this awkward situation and making it difficult to explain to people even those who have basic accounting knowledge.
By making all data link to the chart of account, for example. The process gets much simpler without sacrificing customization. I mean, you can literally add every kind of account you want from the chart of account menu.
Now if the problem is technical (impossible to code, too much risk of making a huge mess) then that’s another story.
To be honest I have had to experiment to work out if a COA account should be generated directly in the COA screen or via another screen (which is later visible in COA screen). Having all account types created in one place would be nice. A control account could just be another account type created on the chart of accounts screen.
Of course in practice it is not a task I do every day so the incremental savings of my time would not be dramatic.
I try to envisage what you mean as unfolding all these settings will be messier and less user -friendly, needing endless scrolls.
Anyway you seem to focus on Chart of Accounts and despite explaining that some items get automatically populated when enabling for example Sales Invoices in Customize (creates acounts payable, if you want more differentiation then you can add control accounts, assign these to accounts payable which then no longer shows). What about Special Accounts, Capital Accounts, etc, The current way where some accounts appear when enabling functional tabs and we can
use of Control accounts for more individual customization in addition to Chart of Accounts is powerful.
Once you are familiar with the interface you start appreciating it or if not then can change to another package that meets these needs. Also as @Patch indicated most is related to setting up the businesses in Manager and once set they hardly need access to Chart of Accounts and Control Accounts. For most of our businesses we did not have to touch these after the initial few weeks when testing and reviewing. Since then they work. Indeed, it is sometimes annoying when new features get introduced that requires new ways of working. Take for example the recent changes to Inventory that requires Sales Orders and Purchase orders to be enabled to allow for tracking. Although these are improvements they require adopting new procedures that require investment in staff training, but I digress.
We also found control accounts extremely confusing at first. (And even if we needed to add more sub accounts today, I’d still backup and probably restore a few times to get it right.) But… Spending the time to thoroughly customize the GL is typically a one time ordeal. Once done, this bookkeeping software is IMO in a class on it’s own.
After 20+ years dealing with Intuit products (& several others), we migrated one company to Manager.IO & took the time to do it right. (learn the software first, then customize & create a clean end of year cutoff)
Can’t believe we dealt with all the bank feed frustrations of Quickbooks (both online & desktop version) for so many years. - Nothing but issue after issue after issue. (They were never good at integrating their own bank feeds lol/col! - Similar transactions were constantly being dropped/ignored etc. & their online version was all to frequently losing bank feed connections presumably due to bank updates etc.) This is NOT an issue with Manager.IO. In fact, before you commit the import you see the ending account balance which has NEVER been wrong once this past year! (multiple financial institutions/feeds) For myself, this simple feature eliminates a lot of anxiety while working with the feeds!
Almost one year later… Using Manager.IO has literally cut our bookkeeping time to about 1/3! It’s so fast, automated, easy & reliable that I actually enjoy “doing the books!” Would love to have the ability to add accounts on the fly!(desktop version) But aside from this, it’s difficult to find anything to complain about!**
Note: You can right click any link & continue bookkeeping (with multi tabs open) in your default browser. - This is how we minimize the shortcoming of not being able to “add accounts on the fly.” It’s not ideal because you DO have to refresh the bookkeeping tab you were in to see the newly added account. (But it works.)
There is no difference with Desktop and Cloud/Server in this regard. It is not allowed in any version. Reasons are clear because it would mess up the Chart of Accounts.
Was not referring specifically to adding chart of accounts “on the fly”… Thinking more about about Suppliers & Customers. (adding them “on the fly” which I believe is actually a benefit of the cloud version)
It is not, almost all functionality is identical with Cloud/Server and Desktop. Onlhy multi-user and weblinks in emails pr customr portal are different.
You can always trial a free month Cloud service so you can experience the little difference.
Interesting… Somewhere in the forum someone had stated otherwise!
PS: I found a FANTASTIC solution to this using the default Manager.IO interface. (adding records on the fly) I’ve got tabs without using a different browser! Going to share but have to confirm the name of the application that provides this functionality.
Please do not share whatever application you find. You do not need it, and that would violate forum rules, so a moderator would delete your post.
You can have multiple Manager windows open in any edition of Manager. Simply right-click on any blue link on the screen to open another window. The exact procedure varies by operating system.
