As we have no use for this functionality as is presently implemented, would you add the ability to disable it as you have done for unpresented cheques? Thank you.
What do you mean you have no use for this functionality âas is it presently implementedâ?
This would imply to me that you would use bank deposits if it does something more?
Right now we use âReceive moneyâ button to record our deposits utilizing Customer Credits directly into the bank account in Manager prior to making the deposit at the bank. We make sure that the dates and amounts match with the bank transaction so that when we import bank transactions Manager will not download our deposits. No more work for us to do.
With the current implementation of deposits in Manager, we are required to assign a reference number to each deposit in addition to what we normally are required to input. Then if we import bank transactions into Manager, we are required to manually assign the reference number to uncleared deposits editing bank deposit transactions. More work for same result. No recording of customer information for customer statements like cheque no. and date of cheque. We could just ignore extra column for uncleared deposits but would it be possible to not see it by selecting an option under the bank account edit button?
Iâll make bank deposits column optional but I still think you could benefit with it.
You see, when you record uncleared statement transactions, you still have to manually fix up the dates before bank statement import so no duplicate transactions are created. Not to mention, customer statements are not entirely correct as the date of the payment is when your bank transaction clears rather than when it was really received.
How about when you receive money from customer which will be deposited later, it could be entered as a bank deposit. Then you will be able to set up bank rule which would match any imported bank transactions automatically against previously recorded bank deposits to clear them. Wouldnât it be more efficient way?
Bank rules are a bit dumb right now and canât do this yet but it wonât take too long before this will be possible. The goal of bank rules is to completely automate the banking categorization process when importing statements. If you achieve 100% coverage with bank rules, there is literally no manual work to do in terms of categorizing or matching imported transactions.
The fact that current implementation of deposits is more work is only temporary state until remaining pieces of puzzle are added. Then it will be actually less work and more correct way.
Yes you are correct. We do have to make sure that dates (and amounts) in Manager match with dates (and amounts) in the bank account import file. Not a big problem with online banking.
Enhanced bank rules may help depending on what you have in mind. Our bank only provides the amount and date of the deposit in the import file for matching purposes. We also deposit a number of cheques in a single deposit so âcorrectâ payment dates is not currently possible in Manager unless each cheque is recorded as a single uncleared deposit with matching dates to make customer statements correct (I assume). Then a problem arises where uncleared deposit amounts in Manager will be different from the bank deposit of multiple cheques.
Either single deposits need to be gathered or combined in some way or just use the uncleared deposit balance as a bucket without one to one matching.
If you can see a way to handle multiple payments in a single deposit at the bank and make matching and categorizing work automatically, I will be happy to use it in the future. I know this feature is under development and appreciate it will change in time. Bank rules depend on just what information is contained in the downloaded bank file anyway and 100% coverage may not be possible. In our current deposit method bank rules already give us as much coverage as we need since no deposits are downloaded. Thank you for your quick reply.
I think itâs getting there. See Cheques module - #34 by lubos
@Lubos has a plan to allow us to add receipts to the deposits as received so that weâll be able to record the actual date of receipt from customers and then to add a function to deposits to allow a new Depositâ to be created from existing deposits, i.e. weâll be able to group the individual receipt level deposit âitemsâ into a larger âdeposit slipâ level deposit clearing the individual ones. I plan to use my actual deposit date for that one. Lastly, weâll then be able to match and clear that deposit during bank reconciliation reflecting the statement clearing date. I think this scheme will work well.
Iâm not sure that I followed @esenickiâs workflow description correctly. But it sounds like Uncleared Deposits is always zero in his case. Would the issue be adequately addressed if Manager simply did not show columns under Bank Accounts with no content? That would be consistent with behavior many other places in the application and avoid the necessity to make the selection. Same thing might apply to Unpresented Cheques.
I might be missing something that makes this impossible, but if it is the result would be elegant.
Yes, but itâs because he not using the feature. My view is that if bank deposits are being made, the feature should be used. I understand why he doesnât want to use it due to friction but Iâm working on improvements which will (hopefully) reduce the friction significantly.
I really prefer to make bank deposits workflow so good that people actually want to use it if they are really making bank deposits. Because that will make accounting records more accurate.
For example, if you receive payment from customer on 05/05/2015, they will see this date on their customer statement rather than a date three days later because that is when the payment was cleared by the bank.
You can hide Unpresented cheques column. Simply make sure none of your bank accounts have enabled cheque facility when you edit bank accounts.
My position is the same as yours on this question, @lubos. I was trying to suggest a simple approach to address users who might share @esenickiâs opinion and workflow.
Iâm sorry to add a further discussion but feel things may be changing that affect my workflow now so this topic is relevant to my question.
- I donât import bank statements into Manager
- I deposit cash and cheques twice a month, sometimes more, amount related
- I have created a cash account called âUndeposited fundsâ
My work flowâŚ
Sales invoice created. When payed for by customer, I click receive money and allocate to Undeposited Funds account (cash account), if payment in cash I write in description âPayment for invoice xxxx CASHâ
If cheque I write in description âPayment for invoice xxxx CHEQUEâ and enter the cheque number in the reference box.
This allows me to use the search function to drill down.
Several more customers paid and money received and allocated to Undeposited funds account.
Half way through the month I will deposit the cash and cheques into the bank. I count the total of cash and cheques and compare to the Undeposited funds account to make sure they match, I then fill out a bank paying in slip and enter the correct amount of cash and amounts in cheques and pay into bank.
I then transfer money from Undeposited funds account to Business account to reflect the deposit which clears this account down to â0â
This has worked well for two years and is quick and simple with no more work needed.
I have read that @lubos is going to remove the âTransferâ button soon so this is going to affect the way I do things now.
I havenât tried the new functions yet but think I may be forced to use them soon.
Will this take me more time / be more complicated than the way I just described as I donât import my bank statement into manager?
When I use the method just described, I donât need to change any dates to mirror my bank statement, when I pay in cheques yes they take 3 days to clear but once cleared the date is the same as the day I deposited the cheques and cash.
Would I have to use the new features as Iâm unsure how they all work (no guides) and will this cause me more work/time?
Thank you
I was basically doing the same, cash account for undeposited. Wasnât asking for anything to be removed just noticed with the new deposit function I couldnât âdeposit cashâ.
After reading comments about my remarks on uncleared deposits I have decided to make one more observation of the current implementation and how it affects us.
Yesterday we made a bank deposit of 21 cheques. We use the receive money function under the bank account tab now situated under âstatement balanceâ column. We enter all these cheques with 21 lines and utilize the âCustomer Creditsâ feature of Manager which gives us the customer name from a drop down list. Then we add the customer cheque number and date of the cheque in the description field. We then print out this page and take it to the bank along with the cheques for deposit. The teller deposits the cheques and we compare the total of our deposit on the Manager printout with what the bank teller has. If there are no errors then the printout is stamped and a bank receipt is stapled to it. Note the dates on the printout from Manager and the bank receipt must match to avoid duplicates when importing bank transactions into Manager.
This receive money page in Manager is the only record of a customer payment we have albeit mixed with the other 20 customer payments on the same page. There is no place at present to input cheque numbers and dates which are obviously required for correct customer statements. It is not presently easy (possible?) to view individual customer payments in Manager without these other payments being present. There appears to be an assumption that payments and deposits are interchangeable terms as currently implemented. The only affect of this to us is incorrect customer statements with incorrect payment dates.
With the addition of Uncleared Deposits as currently implemented the bank deposit created here is currently exactly the same information as in receive money with the added currently necessary Reference number. There is no place to enter cheque numbers or dates here either. The main affect if we try to use this feature is to place deposits in a new control account on the Summary page and requires us to manually match reference numbers for each and every deposit which creates more work for us in data entry. We have to in effect do deposits twice instead of once as we do now.
The benefit of a deposit module to us is not as important as having a customer payment module which is no more than having the ability to record customer payment information that will be correctly shown on customer statements.
I trust that Lubos will implement a system for doing this in the near future and look forward to it. Until he does so, I have requested the ability to turn off this functionality.
I hope this helps and I will have no further comments until Lubos makes bank deposits âso good that people actually want to use itâ.
I hope you donât get the idea we donât like Manager. We absolutely love it. Little things like the cloning feature and bank rules have made our accounting procedures very simple and amazingly fast. Itâs a huge time saver for us. Keep up the good work!
1 Like
You can continue using your workflow, Iâm not taking any features away.
When I say Iâm going to remove transfer button doesnât mean you wonât be able to do transfers. You will still able to do them within âSpend moneyâ or âReceive moneyâ screen. The reason why transfer button is bad is because if you are importing bank statements, you want the option to simply âcategorizeâ imported transactions as transfers (either manually or via bank rules).
Thatâs great thanks very much @lubos.
Hi @lubos , may i ask how to change my cheque status to presented from unpresented ?
Thanks 
There will be guides covering this by end of this week.
In nutshell, all cheques are posted to Unpresented cheques account. So to clear the cheque, the bank payment (once the cheque is presented) will need to be categorized to Unpresented cheques account.
If this doesnât make sense what Iâm saying, wait for the guides.
@lubos, I am trying to be patient. But I simply cannot figure out this business of unpresented cheques. (I presume some of the same issues may exist for uncleared deposits, but I donât have any of those, so I cannot tell.)
I just tried to reconcile my checking account with the bank statement. (Assistant disabled.) Prior to my doing so, all checks and deposits had cleared. So the bankâs statement matched the Actual Balance column. When I entered the reconciliation date and matching balance, nothing happened to the Unpresented Cheques total. When I click that balance, I get the list of checks written recently (since the big changes to Bank Accounts). But clicking Edit, there is no way to show a check as presented. And clicking the Unpresented figure sends me to a screen headed âPayments,â but showing Empty. I had expected to see a list of checks.
Perhaps all will be made clear with release of the new Guides, but I canât see any way to access the Unpresented Cheques account or any check within it.
This problem is going to rapidly grow out of control. 
During bank reconciliation process you will be able to see all unpresented cheques and uncleared deposits and âclearâ those which should be cleared (this is similar to ticking process). Right now this is not possible during bank reconciliation.
The only way to clear unpresented cheque during bank reconciliation is to create new bank payment (using Spend money button) and categorize it under Unpresented cheques account which is a bit cumbersome.
Thank you. Iâm relieved, in a way, to know the capability just isnât there yet. I was imagining some horribly complex process.
Given that this improvement is pending, would you recommend clearing checks now through the Spend Money process or waiting for the clearing process you describe? I would prefer to wait if it wonât be too much longer. I also wonder what will happen to those clearing transactions, if I make them, when the new approach is available. Will I need to go back and reverse them?
You will see this in a few days. Possibly even today.
It doesnât matter whether you clear the cheque by manually creating the payment or by using upcoming âclearâ buttons on bank reconciliation screen. The result will be the same.