I have been using Quickbooks for over 20 years. I am ready for a change. I only have very simple requirements. The only module that I use is GL. Here are the functions that I use:
General journal entries
Import bank statements
Import credit card statements for purchases
Import credit card merchant transaction for sales
Basic accounting reports
Export data to send to accountant
It should be noted that the credit cards and merchant transactions are effectively equivalent to bank statements if they can be mapped properly.
I reviewed the Manager website and did not seem much regarding the importing
I’m not a very advanced Manager user but I believe all the features you listed are present within Manager. I’ll tackle each of your items. No guarantees, no warranties.
General journal entries
Yes this is a basic feature. I use it and it’s perfectly possible.
Yes this is a feature. I think I tried it once and my financial institution didn’t output their CSV data in quite a nice enough format for Manager. I prefer to make manual transactions so the lesson here is YMMV.
In manager, credit cards are treated the same as any other bank account except you expect them to have a negative balance. This is documented lots on the forums and I think in the manual. To this end, it’s the same as the previous section on importing bank receipts.
Someone else can correct me here but I think you’d once again use the import bank statements feature. Ultimately a statement of receipts (revenues) is no different from a statement of payments (expenses).
So this is another YMMV. It depends on what software your accountant is willing (and/or able) to use. The really great thing about Manager is that it’s free if you are running it as a single user/single computer. Even if you are using the server or cloud version, you can backup the business file out of Manager and give it to someone using the free/desktop version. So if your accountant is willing to install and spend a bit of time learning Manager, they can just install Manager, load your business file, and they’re off to the races.
It’s worth consulting with your accountant first to have a plan ready before you spring this change on them. They may also be able to inform you with regards to any regulatory considerations before making the switch.
Manager will absolutely do everything you ask. But don’t expect the experience to be like using your former program. Most things will be easier and more intuitive, but not the same.
Try it out. It’s free and you can create as many businesses as you want to experiment. Read the Guides.
I wanted to keep my question simple. But as additional information I would like to add the following:
Over the years I have found that banks provide a very simple interface using either IIF or nowadays not even that but just plain CSV.
Because I am a software developer with substantial accounting experience, I have always taken that simple output from the bank and modified it using a script. So it transforms each entry which the bank offsets into suspense into an actual journal entry into the proper account.
So I get good accounting via the automated script. If it were not for this programming, I would find bank downloads pretty useless, and don’t understand how the world considers this acceptable.
The bottom line is that if Manager can import such scripts, then we should be good to go with banks, credit cards, and merchant transactions.
I suppose the next step would be to just try it out.
Indeed, the best way is to setup a test business and experiment. I kept 2 test business ever since starting using Manager and trial and error whenever I try to figure stuff out, So just give it a go.
I am not a developer (edit for clarity: Not a developer by trade, nor a developer of Manager) and Manager is the only bookkeeping program I’ve used. If it has a built-in way to setup(use) customized scripts or a REST API or similar, I would not be familiar with it. For all I know they have a plugin/mod system hiding in plain sight.
That said, (and I’m unintentionally going to misrepresent here) the Manager Desktop application is just a web server, the web site front end & backend (whatever that is under the hood), and the web client (chromium based I’m guessing).
If you right click on most any navigation button in Manager, you’ll get the option to copy the link like any other browser. You can take that link over to your preferred browser and paste it in, and you’ll hit (in the case of Manager Desktop) the local web server that manager is running.
What I’m getting at is I could imagine a person of your skills developing a Chromium or Firefox extension/plugin that modifies the website to your needs when it detects you’ve browsed to the Manger web server, then do whatever you want in the interface.
This is probably a lot of work though.
I definitely recommend like the others to install and play around. Maybe you’ll find a feature built-in to Manager which means you don’t need to do anything custom. At the very least, you currently don’t know what you don’t know. But after you use it, you’ll know what you don’t know and then you can spin up new forum topics which will be more focused in nature and probably attract the right people to it.
I noticed that it mentioned somewhere in the documentation that sqlite3 was the database used. I was able to drill down to find the database, and fire up sqlite3 to look around a bit. That was interesting.
Since i have not entered anything in to the system yet, the data tales related to transactions seemed to not be present. My theory is that when you start entering data, that the appropirate tables are created.
Generally it would not be a good idea to interact at the SQL level, as that is asking for trouble. But it is nice to be able to take a peek in this way.
For the bold but not reckless, the database is at ~/.local/share/Manager/CompanyName.manager, where “CompanyName” is that name that you chose for your company.
@jasimon9, you’re looking at the application data folder. The location varies with different operating systems. It’s also important to understand it is not a SQLite database, but only structured similarly.
Manager.IO IMO is FANTASTIC! Was in the same boat as you. Have used & thoroughly tested MANY different accounting programs since the late 80’s. This one IMO is by far the best. Particularly IF you rely heavily on downloaded transactions. IMO, nothing comes close. Makes Quickbooks look slow and CLUNKY!.. Rules are transparent and easy to use/update while you’re reviewing downloaded bank transactions too!
ONLY thing I miss is the ability to sort on columns on this one screen. (Sorting exists virtually everywhere else in Manager.IO EXCEPT it’s missing from the screen that “batch accepts & importing bank statements.”)
Note: Downloading and working with bank transactions is far superior to Quickbooks IMO, with the one exception noted above. Hoping that sorting gets added to this screen: Because it is far easier to spot rule based errors when all similar transactions can be sorted so they’re all together. (sort by bank memo field etc.) The ability to sort by “Rule Applied” would also be FANTASTIC! - Never seen that anywhere else… And unlike Quickbooks, if a rule is not working properly: You can edit the rule right there, fix it AND see how it effects ALL the transactions that have not been accepted yet!
PS: The only tricky part for setup was integrating the “Control Accounts” feature. (This is the feature that provides grouping of similar accounts ie: multiple checking accounts under a parent account.)
Best way to begin using Manager.IO is to grab an end of year/end of month balance sheet. We began using it Jan.01 2023. Kept two identical sets of books for comparison through end of April. FLAWLESS RESULTS! It’s lightweight, fast & you only add the features you need. (Keeps the interface CLEAN!)
One other thing: Adding accounts/customer/suppliers on the fly etc. is not directly supported BUT all you have to do is right click on a link and open that link in your default web browser. From there, you can open multi-tabs to accomplish the same thing. Need a new supplier? Add one in the supplier tab and then refresh the other tab. (Manager is a web browser based app which I thought I would not like… How wrong I was!)
I would like to reignite this post. I am leaving Quickbooks Essentials for a couple reasons I will explain in a moment. Jasimon9 has posted his situation and it almost exactly my situation. Jamesaepp and others responded but some of the links were no longer functioning.
I run a small apartment complex and a couple rv slots. Everyone pays through Venmo. No billing or invoices. Lots of expenses and incomes is all.
I need to know if I can run a Profit and Loss (Detailed) report and a Balance Sheet report.
The latter requires 2 line accounting. I think Manager has 2 line accounting but not sure. QB Solopreneur does not have 2 line acct making it impossible to do Balance sheet reports.
I would really miss the Recurring Transactions feature if Manager does not offer it. This is how I make sure my accounts have enough money for my monthly withdrawals like electric bill, insurance payment, and mortgage. I also put in my [reliable] tenants’ rent payments in as recurring deposits a month in advance. As the transactions actually hit the bank account they would match and be cleared in my register. (QBO automation stopped matching them and just added them so I had to go in and erase the transaction out of my register to get a good picture of my finances- Reason #1 why I am leaving)
Reason #2 why I am leaving is because QB AutoCategorizes my transactions and does a mighty poor job of it. For instance I ate at a restaurant called Hugo’s and I have a merchant in Hugo, MN. Every time I ate there it would categorize my meal as “Bank Fee” instead of “Meals”
requiring me to fix EVERY transaction downloaded from my bank. Every transaction was miscategorized. I spent more time fixing QBO and Ranting on Feedback than I spent managing my business. No Good! the feature was not disable-able. And I got to pay them 60 bucks a month for 2 companies for this privelidge. I am leaving because of it. Does Manager insist on doing a better job with my categories that I can? If so this will be a deal breaker.
I like the QB feature of automatically downloading my bank transactions for me to review each day at 8 am. The list of XN’s would be ready for me to review (They were all wrong…but at least they were there) each morning. Does Manager have this function? Or do I have to export them from my bank account to my desktop and import them from my desktop to manager? I am pretty efficient at the process but prefer the auto download capability of QB.
Is the free version upgradable should I need the features of the online Manager version?
When a link does not work in older forum posts it would refer to the older guides that used to be on www. and now are on www2. as in: https://www2.manager.io/guides/
Here you can see that Manager, be it in different ways than Quickbooks will meet your accounting needs, be it recurring invoices or granular management of receipt and payment rules applied to bank statements.
Manager is in many aspects quite different from Quickbooks as each accounting application (Sage, Xero, etc) are also different and you will thus experience some learning curve.
As far as updating the free desktop version is concerned you are even encouraged to do so often by downloading and installing it over the old version (it will not affect your business data-files). The free Desktop version’s ability is the same as Server and Cloud with the exception of multi-user, login access, authorization, and because of web-delivery use on tablets and pnones. See for differences.
Sold! Thank you, Kind Souls, for your help making this decision. With the information you’ve provided me this is a no-brainer. I will spend the next three months with duplicate accounting programs making sure I know what I’m doing and then January 1 will dump Quickbooks.
This will be a lot more computer time than I enjoy and I could probably stick with Quickbooks easier than I could dump it…and I am still going to dump it. Thats the only way the “little guy” can get the message across to abusive big corporations.
One last question I just thought of: I will need to upgrade my MacBook Pro to a computer that has silicone chip instead of Intel Chip?
My computer is seven years old and does not meet the operating system requirements of Manager.io. I am prepared to do this, I just want to know that I really do need to do this in order to download the desktop version. As you can imagine buying a new computer just multiplies the amount of time I will be spending on the computer getting it set up. It’s as bad as buying a new cell phone which I did recently also. Ugh! I just want to go play in my garden.
Your input would be very valuable to me. Thank you, Newby
You really must do more research yourself when using Manager, go through the guides and look at posts at the forum. Otherwise you may be frustrated having moved from Quickbooks.
