I am using the desktop edition and love it. I upgraded to the latest version 19.9.2 and I noticed that on the summary page when I drill to the Accounts Payable balance, it now displays all suppliers instead of just the outstanding balances. Prior to this version it only displayed suppliers with an outstanding balance.
Was this deliberate and is there a setting to just display suppliers with outstanding balances and exclude suppliers with zero balance?
I have the summary page set to exclude zero balances and using the accrual basis accounting method.
It is deliberate so you can access ledger of all suppliers but perhaps it could be improved so suppliers with non-zero balances will be shown first. Thoughts?
Personally, I think the new approach of showing all subaccounts is preferable. The philosophy elsewhere in the program, when showing transactions, is to show everything that contributes to a balance. Even when a customer’s or a supplier’s balance has reached zero, the transactions that contribute to that zero balance are important. Likewise, a supplier’s or customer’s zero contribution to the overall account balance is important. A user could, for example, be looking for a specific transaction. If the subaccount happens to have reached zero, and is therefore not shown, that transaction will not be found. More information is better. And alphabetical order is easier to understand.
I have about 40 suppliers with about 5 or 6 with non-zero balances
The previous version suited me fine. Now that all 40 suppliers are listed, I usually sort the list by clicking on Balance twice, so that the suppliers with a balance appear at the top. So the change is not a big deal but I can understand that it might not suit all
Thanks @tut for getting back to me, Whilst I partially agree, you can do that from going directly to Suppliers to get the same result, the Summary is more about exactly that, what makes up the outstanding balance, I am not interested in zero balance suppliers, just my suppliers that are outstanding, the rest is just noise.
If I want to drill down to all my suppliers for transactions, then I will do that from the Suppliers option, Acounts Payable is totally different, that is about what accounts I have payable right now.
Would you please reconsider changing the Accounts Payable drill down to just what is outstanding please?
Hi @joe91, that is fine sorting by balance, however you lose the ability to sort alphabetically then, I preferred it when I only got what was outstanding as I have many suppliers with zero outstanding balances
I understand your point of view, @Gadgetman. But I could turn your argument right around on you. If you want to know what specific suppliers are owed, look in the Suppliers tab and click the Accounts receivable column.
My point is that different users search for information in different ways, from different directions. The old approach of suppressing zero-balance subaccounts in Accounts receivable/payable removed one of the most obvious paths to useful information. Further, it was at odds with the design philosophy that prevails elsewhere in the program.
The change was made in response to requests from multiple users. I don’t think you will see it undone.
“If you want to know what specific suppliers are owed, look in the Suppliers tab and click the Accounts receivable column.”
That comment makes no sense at all, what has accounts receivable got to do with suppliers? I assume you mean Accounts Payable?
Clicking on the Suppliers tab means you are interested in all your suppliers, not just the ones outstanding.
I do not agree with your point, to me Summary>Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable is exactly that, a summary, not the detail, a quick way of seeing only what I owe to whom and only what is owed to me by whom.
If you want to see all the detail, go to the obvious location of Suppliers or Customers, not the Summary, otherwise, why bother with a summary?
Your points is also at odds with other summary selections, click on Summary>Fixed Assets you only get active fixed assets, not all of them.The Summary gives you the option to exclude zero balances, why not other summary values?
There is not consistency from what I can see you state.
I guess I will not see the more obvious and common sense approach that a summary is a summary, that is outstanding suppliers only and outstanding customers only.
Just because multiple users see things a particular way does not make it right, when does logic and common sense come into play?
Also your comment that you can sort by alphabetic, that is obvious, however what you are missing is it will then mix up the zero balance suppliers with the non zero suppliers, again does not make sense or logic and just more steps.
I can see I will have to export out to excel just to get a list of a summary of outstanding balances or run the Accounts Payable report which is still way more steps in total compared to before the update to get the easy result of viewing in summary by supplier outstanding balances.
Hi @lubos thank you, that is an improvement and at least is in alphabetical order of suppliers by outstanding balances so I think meets everyone’s requirements
all outstanding balances by supplier alphabetically first,
all suppliers at a glance with balance and can be sorted alphabetically
meets the consistent approach in Manager of one click for quick summary access rather than having to run reports or export
I totally like the new feature too. I have always suffered going to other places to find the transactions in 0 balance accounts. I would prefer we stick to arrangement in alphabetical order for all accounts, makes searching easier.