Manager being an accounting program, any value, even if it is just a zero, should be accounted for. any value entered in a transaction, irrespective of whether an account is selected or not, Manager should query where the value needs to be allocated. since Manager is not designed as an AI and cannot make most decisions on its own, it needs the user to recheck the transaction and take necessary actions. this would not be possible if Manager does not indicate the user if there is a recheck of transactions necessary. this should be the purpose of Suspense account in Manager.
anyway even i would like to hear an opinion from @lubos regarding this.
Thank you, this is very useful information. Some people have tried to use the suspense account as a working account (which causes problems by design), others have used Manager in ways most have not anticipated (expanding it’s functionality and value), and finally we have all made data entry errors.
Thank you also for highlighting and clearly describing this behaviour. It will save others who also come across it a considerable amount of time in rectifying it in their systems.
I believe the underlying issue is Manager is a web based application which does not support modal data entry screens. In contrast most accounting programs would force the user to complete a data entry screens before the user could move on (save or cancel button required to leave a data entry screen where save is only possible when the complete transaction data has been entered). In a web based application there are lots of other ways of leaving a page (eg close the page, work on another window, select a link to another page). Most web based applications discard partly entered data if you go elsewhere, the application design issue is the application does not know if you want to briefly check something (then will complete the transaction) or leave the half completed entry for an extended period.
Manager has taken the lack of modal data entry deficiency, and used it as a strength. Instead of forcing users to complete entry of a transaction before doing another task, it has allowed data to be partly entered and not lost.
In a double entry accounting system a partly entered transaction will compromise the double entry principle unless the system takes corrective action. That is what the suspense account does. It allows non modal data entry without discarding partly entered transactions in a double entry accounting system. It does this consistently. As a result, a transaction without a single entry does not need a system created second entry to maintain the double entry accounting system balance. So the fact it does not show in the suspense account is not a bug. But perhaps the documentation of the suspense account could be enhanced to clarify it’s function is a system correction to temporarily maintain double entry accounting balance not a list all data entry omissions (and give the case you have elucidated as an example).
A separate question is; now we have a suspense account which contains most of the system detectable incomplete transactions, would Manager be better if it contained all (or almost all, it may get hard to know when to stop) of them? For a transaction with no head or destination account that would mean both the credit and debit entry would be simultaneously added to the suspense account. The suspense account would also need to show when it is balanced but still has entries.
Not showing unbalanced journal entries is similar. The error is clearly shown elsewhere in Manger. Manager is not discarding the partial entry while the user does other tasks. Manager is maintaining the double entry accounting balance (probably by confining the correction to the JE and temporary forcing balance within the journal entry eg not applying the entry or limiting changes to the balanced portion). Alternative behaviour would be for Manager to assume the maximal funds moved side was correct and put the unbalanced portion of the lower value side in the suspense account.
The program behaviour could be changed in both cased to do something different (a program enhancement idea). However when the program behaviour in understood, I’m not sure it would make that much difference. The key issues are:
Errors should be readily visible (even if that means looking in more than one place)
The system maintains double entry accounting balance
The system allows non modal data entry without throwing away user data entry.
yes and of course whenever a sub account or head account is not specified by user, like @Tut said a transaction is going nowhere that is why manager ignored it; i think that is not the case. Any unspecified account transaction is by default posted to suspense account already, and all i am saying that, it should be shown there; and anything in suspense means something wrong for sure, and manager must show, whenever something is in suspense, no matter how meaningless or insignificant.
Of course i consider it a strength that manager allows incomplete transactions. It is a quite handy feature. But yes it would be even more great if manager could keep track of such transactions and notify the user on the summary screen. Such feature will help in reducing data entry errors and will save the user from the effort of scanning payments and receipts. It is not necessary that suspense account should handle these. There can be another section in summary view for incomplete transactions.
I don’t like the idea to have ghost transaction around Manager that cannot be spotted. Maybe in the future a change in the program can bring to same strange results.
I think that @lubos should create a section of “checks”, ie suspended tracking codes (that already exist), suspended transactions, orphan invoices (this case), invoices lines not linked to tax codes and so on…