Accounts: Stop journal consolidation

[Will_SolnX_NZ]

Hi,

In earlier versions of AccountRight it was possible to enter a single journal entry that coded against the same account multiple times, and each line could be reconciled individually, or searched for individually in reports or Find Transaction screens.

Is it possible to return to the old way of reporting journal entries, where I could reconcile each line individually, and search for each line individually?  The way the software now consolidates journals makes it much harder for me to see the individual parts of account movement if I'm coding spend money or general journal transactions.

"Stop journal consolidation in AccountRight 2011"

[lb77]

When preparing a Bank Deposit from transactions imported from RetailManager all separate items are now grouped into 1 transactions.

In previous versions (v19 and earlier) they were separate transactions on the Bank Deposit screen.  This made it possible to add items to a bank deposit individually, which is needed for everyday business.

Can we please have the transactions ungrouped as they used to be?

I have brought this problem up a few times since 2011, and have been told that developers were going to fix it.

http://community.myob.com/t5/Upgrading-to-AccountRight-2011/Importing-Retailmanager/m-p/115092

From Barry:

Grouping of transactions with the prepare bank deposit account can cause concerns where you need to split transactions to different bank accounts.  v19 split every individual transaction where the new AccountRight 2011 is only splitting by payment type on the prepare bank deposit account.  This issue has been logged with our product developers.

[Mike_James]

For some reason I thought this had already been addressed in a previous service pack. It is extremely disappointing to find that line consolidation by account number continues.

The reasons for keeping it as it was are:

1. Manual entry of multiple bank transactions, which are intended to be separately reconciled

2. Use of line memo on journals.

3. Impact when importing from other systems.

What I find most concerning is that we are even being asked to vote to return posting processes to the old way.

[lb77]

I have the same problem with journal entries that are imported from Retail Manager.  I have brought this up many times and have always been told that the developers were going to fix it.  It's still the same though.

I posted this to the Ideas Exchange a while back and got no comment from MYOB at all.

http://community.myob.com/t5/AccountRight-idea-exchange/Ungroup-Transactions-Imported-from-RetailMan...

Everything worked fine back in v19.x but since then reconciling bank accounts has become nearly impossible.

Liam.

P.S. This is still happening in the latest 2012.9 version.

[TonyLane]

I'm in full agreement with Mike James' comments.

The business of having to vote for continuity of functionality between V19 and V2012.9 is unacceptable to all users.

[Dan_Moulton]

Thanks for the feedback, looking at the votes seems like a pretty hot topic. We understand the frustrations. I'd like some feedback about the way v19 handles Debtors and Creditors posting - v19 did the exclusive & GST values as 2 separate postings which historically caused a fair bit of confusion - does having these separate make sense or add value to your processes?

[Mike_James]

Hello Dan

It's very nice to have these entries appearing as one in the debtors/creditors control accounts.

Would it be possible to distinguish between entries to control accounts and others?

[Julia_Berkhout]

Hi Dan, Perhaps your question regarding posting gst on a separate line should go out to Myob users in a public way such as a newsletter, announcement or survey, I would be very interested to know the percentage of replies. Maybe multiple choices such as Never noticed, Only bothers me when looking for customer deposits with no reference (Like a lot of customers don't know when looking in ledgers that the amounts are gst exclusive), Confused by the question, I hate it because …, I love it because, etc. My personal opinion is it may stop some accountants adding gst onto debtors and creditors balances on tax returns and financial's even though the gst is also listed on balance sheet. And my other opinion is that making changes to fix something that is easily understood with a little education can have a major impact on areas that the majority can't work with and I mean can't not don't want to. Possibly the control accounts might be less affected, but reading through the comments the bank accounts are seriously hindered. I have not to date been able to upgrade due to computer, time billing and now I tried it has converted my CC Plus to AR2012.9 standard - no time billing there either, though I know a lot of sole traders out there would love to do there invoices once in time billing. Thanks

[Julie_A_C]

I would have to agree with Mike and Tony regarding voting on ungrouping transactions, that are split by us but then grouped by the program. Why should we need to vote.  Not only is it changing something that was working correctly previously but have any of the programmers checked the Accounting Standards and verified if this is actually allowed under the laws that govern these things?  I think you will find that from an auditing and accounting standpoint it is a big NO NO. 

I have noticed that part of what I have mentioned previously has been fixed, eg when I process say a spend money transaction on my bank account with the allocation being to the same bank account MYOB does now actually show the in and out entries in my bank rec where before it showed nothing, but when I processed an entry the other day, which was a spend money for say $300 with the allocation split over two lines to the same bank account of $150 each MYOB decided again to group the deposit side as $300, which makes it hard to reconcile when I have two people repaying me $150 each and it comes through a week or two apart.

Regarding the grouping of the debtors and creditors entry as one, this is a absolute positive.  In previous versions if you for example received a payment for say $110 and didnt know who had an invoice for this amount, you could not just search for $110 you always had to remember to search for the GST exclusive amount, which made it a bit hard when there was a mixture of GST and GST free entries on the invoice, so I would definately vote to keep this improvement.

[JaniceLloyd]

There is an issue when you enter bank statement credit card statement by journal and you code more than one entry to a specific account. IE  2 or more entries to a loan account.  When going to reconcile the loan account for each month it adds all the entries together as opposed to having individual lines for each entry made in the journal entry.

I contacted myob about this to be told it will be addressed but is not a major issue. I assure you for many bookkeepers and accountants this is a very major issue, and needs to be sorted very quickly.  I have many clients as do the accountants I deal with that we do their work via journal to save costs, time etc.  If this cannot be fixed then for the first time since MYOB came out I will actually have to look at an alternative program.

I am appalled that notes have not been put up about this issue and that it is being treated as non urgent.

[Dale]

Folks,  thank you all for your input into this topic.  I have been giving this a lot of thought over the past week and have spoke to many different people to get their input on what is the correct behaviour should be.  What is clear is simply going back to the way v19 did things across the board is not the solution but it equally as clear that v2012 needs to improved in relation to consolidation.

We would like to make a change in the software early next year to resolve this and I would like to share with you ahead of time what I believe this change should be and ask you to please provide your input.

In summary I am suggesting the following changes be made:

- Make a change to the software so that spend money, receive money and general journals lines are not consolidated to make it much easier to find a reconcile transactions

- Sales and Purchase transactions will remain as they are in v2012, meaning that the grouping of debtor and credit entries will remain which I believe is a positive as mentioned in the last post

I would love to hear what you all think.