Summary and Balance Sheet appearance

1

I am asking about the BS, but I’m also referring to the summary screen. One of the things I’d like to achieve is a “grouping” of Assets accounts under the main asset banner on the summary so that I can have it appear somewhat similar to the above and have something like what’s illustrated below

I have managed to get my P&L statement to the same format that my accountant uses by manipulating the COA, creating groups and subgroups and re-ordering the hierarchy, and I am quite happy with the results.

I’m wondering if it’s at all possible to do the same thing with the balance sheet?

I realise it has nothing to do with the COA but I can find no way to manipulate the Balance Sheet report to get anything like what she puts together from my paperwork.

The only formats available to us are:

  • Assets - Liability = Equity
  • Assets = Liabilities + Equity
  • Assets = Equity + Liability

I’m not suggesting manager is wrong at all, I realise it’s probably quite arbitrary, but I’d like to replicate the balance sheet they submit, which is in this format:

I’m not concerned about

Equity = Assets - Liabilities
vs 
Assets - Liabilities = Equity

but what I do like is the “grouping” of asset types, notably the “Cash at Bank” which is a combination of bank and cash accounts and the non-current assets and investments.

I’m hoping not to spark any debate on the subject (whether it be about how one accountant should or shouldn’t produce the output, or what the development team do or don’t do), but rather:

is it possible to generate any sort of organised output like the above whether it be through some existing mechanism of manager that I don’t know about? eg, is this what control accounts do, or capital sub-accounts? or some other tool.

If it is completely up to generating a custom report, has anyone done anything like this?

2

I am sure that the grouping can be done in settings COA. Create the groups you require first and then edit each chart account to select the desired group for each account.

I have organised my chart similar to this in this way, except that it is not possible to show equity first.

I have noticed that having equity first is becoming a popular format, and maybe this should be an available option for the BS.

3

You can achieve what you want, with two exceptions, following this Guide: Build a chart of accounts | Manager. You will have to make use of some custom control accounts and special accounts.

The exceptions are:

  • The Equity group cannot be listed first. However, you could export the Balance Sheet report and rearrange the order in a spreadsheet.
  • Your top-level liability heading must be Liabilities, not Current Liabilities, because that group heading is not editable in Manager. Current Liabilities would be a subgroup of Liabilities. Typically, there would be at least one other subgroup, Long-term Liabilities. (Loans would usually appear under Long-term Liabilities, unless the loans are to be paid off during the current accounting period.

Four other observations:

  • Cash in term deposits would not normally be a current asset because the cash is not usually accessible during the current period. If it were, it would just be a normal bank account.
  • Excess of Liabilities over Assets is no different from your Accumulated losses account. By including both, you unbalance the accounting equation.
  • You have not included Retained earnings.
  • You also said Cash at bank is a combination of bank and cash accounts. That is not true in Manager. Cash accounts are reported under Cash on hand.
4

@Tut Now I feel stupid for asking that question. I spent a couple of hours in the chart of accounts screen editing it for the P&L, and for whatever reason, I never looked at the left side of the screen!

I knew I’d seen it somewhere, and when I followed the link to the guide I realised what I’d missed.

All your points were noted, and yeah, headings and ultimate order (equity at the top) is all arbitrary, it was more about grouping which is exactly what I did for P&L and fully right there, right in front of me… on the left lol

Thanks.

5

Oh sugar, @lubos!!! lol

It did restart without error and I’m back into it, so my guess is it was just a glitch because of the COA manipulation with Groups and Accounts as discussed above, although I have been doing it all afternoon with the P&L side, first edit of the BS generated that.

I continued editing and it happened once more, but has been stable since. Looking at the message I’m guessing I had duplicated one of the account names