Transaction Grouping by Financial Year

#1

Since Manager is a perpetual accounting system, the number of transactions listed in each tab is considerably large. so i was thinking whether it would be possible to group them wrt the financial year.

this would allow to show the expanded list of only the current financial transactions for each tab. the previous financial year transaction would be shown as a collapsible list at the bottom which the user can expand manually.

this can be implemented by providing an option under Settings where the user can set the start and end dates of a financial year. this would help Manager automatically group the transactions based on their date.

your thoughts on this @lubos
TIA

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#2

There is already Lock date option under Settings. Usually it is used in the context of locking previous financial periods.

As for hiding transactions before lock date, I’m not sure about it because even though transactions are in the past financial year, they might be still relevant. Just because new financial year starts, you don’t necessarily want to get them out of the view yet. Not to mention, invoices are relevant until paid regardless when they’ve been created.

#3

@lubos that makes sense but my suggestion was just to improve the user interface and not to change any functionality.

my idea was not to get them out of the view completely. the group would still show at the bottom of the list arranged according to the FY which the user can expand manually whenever necessary. once a financial year ends and the user locks the transactions, the user is mostly likely to check the reports and seldom view the transactions individually.

true. if there are unpaid/overpaid invoices then Manager need not collapse the group automatically.

if grouping of transactions is implemented, a counter too can be added to the individual group header which would help easily identify the number of transactions made in the financial year. at present the tab counter shows only the total transactions irrespective of the financial year.

#4

I still don’t understand what is this really solving. Transactions under tabs are sorted by date so old transactions are pushed to next pages anyway and generally out of view.

It’s probably better to implement some history purge function when old data can be deleted altogether and new starting balances can be established (of course you’d keep backup of your file before the purge if you ever need to go back).

#5

there was never any problem to solve. :slightly_smiling_face: it was just a suggestion for future improvements to the user interface.

While at the moment i cannot think of any cons by implementing this, some pros would be:

  1. Like I mentioned earlier a counter for the suggested group would be helpful for users who make their tax filing outside Manager. While filing the annual returns it would be easier to crosscheck the number of transactions rather than counting each one.
  2. Would improve batch operations. For example, when batch deleting very old financial year transactions, clicking a single check box against the group would be sufficient.
#6

You should not be deleting old financial year transactions. Because Manager is perpetual, they still affect your current position, that is, your balance sheet.

#7

not all transactions need to be deleted.
as per law we need to maintain records of invoices for only a maximum of 7 years.

#8

On this question, the law is irrelevant. In a perpetual accounting system, you need the full financial history. You may be able to discard your backup documentation, but you cannot eliminate the transactions from the record.

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#9

i am not sure why you think the users would just delete the transactions and not make the other necessary accounting entries like updating the starting balances.

#10

Because you only mentioned batch deleting. And updating starting balances would not work, because those would affect remaining records that have not been deleted. The only way to do what you suggest is to literally begin the business anew every year.

#11

i mentioned batch deleting only as an example. i was not trying to explain or discuss what all records need to be deleted and updated when doing a batch deletion because that is not the topic i started here.