With permission of Johann, I'm forwarding the mail below to the public mailing list for inclusion in the list archive: There are a number of answers which might benefit other (potential) users.
---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Erik Huelsmann ehuels@gmail.com Date: Sun, Jan 2, 2022 at 10:37 PM Subject: Re: Questions
Hi Johann,
Thank you for your patience while you waited for my reply. Christmas and New Year's are traditionally busy times and this year even more so.
I have attempted to configure your program. I include some questions (some daft ones - but rather safe than sorry) that I would appreciate some answers on before embarking on a more comprehensive evaluation.
No problem. Happy to answer. Before I do, one question though: generally I tend to handle as many replies as possible through public channels so others can benefit from the replies. There are cases where details can't be shared. I do handle those through private communications channels, including private e-mail. These are very often linked to (paid) support requests though. Is there a compelling reason to stay private? Or can we share our conversation with other (potential) users for their benefit?
Which version is the most up to date and stable one for such an evaluation as I would not like to get bogged down with testing at this stage?
Depending on which features you want to use, I'd advise you to use 1.8: 1.9 has had a few changes where people are currently experiencing problems when converting orders to invoices. Other than that, I'm not aware of any problems with 1.9 which would prevent you from getting your testing done.
Questions:
- As no COA for my country is available I had to create a new Chart of
accounts from scratch. I also had to specify the currency as ZAR The tax tables were also created with corresponding tax accounts in the GL. Are the above sufficient to have a program fully functional for evaluation or are other country specific modules also required to be installed?
There are no further requirements to use the application for your country. However, other configuration may be required to take advantage of certain functions in the application: In order to track outstanding receivables and payables, you need to create "Contacts" and within them "Accounts" as one example.
- Must the user entering transactions be listed as an emplyee?
Currently, in order to be able to log in, you need to create an employee for every user. That's correct. (It's something which I want to change, but it's how it is today.)
- When creating a part I would assume that the choice exists to enter a
mark up% or a selling price but not both as these could in some instances contradict each other when cost prices change?
That does sound how it should work, but I just ran some tests and it's not how it actually works: the markup is calculated from the last cost and the sellprice: I entered a sellprice of 12 and then purchased at 8. When I returned to the part definition screen, the markup showed 50%.
Furthermore must the list and selling prices be vat inclusive?
That's not how I use the application. There's a checkmark on the customer which indicates "Tax included", but I think it's impractical to use it on customers (on vendors it's a different story), because then sometimes the prices will be regarded as being VAT inclusive and on other customers, they will be regarded as VAT exclusive, because you can only register one sellprice (not one with and one without VAT; nor can you indicate in the part that the price is VAT inclusive).
- I was able to generate tax inclusive and exclusive Purchase Orders
depending on how the Vendors were configured. Is this observation correct or does the program only allow for tax inclusive processing. Pardon this dumb question. I really hope it is permissible!
This is a completely correct observation.
5.When creating GL accounts I also included Heading accounts. Presumably these will reflect the totalled balances of the child and other heading accounts of which it is a parent?
That's correct. You will find that both for the PnL and the balance sheet reports the headings will be presented with the totals of the children.
- When recording a purchase several workflows seem possible:
6.1When no warehousing or goods – receive work flow is present an invoice can be generated from the PO?
That's correct: you can generate an invoice from the order directly for the amount received. Once you post the invoice, items will be added to inventory (without a specific warehouse). The number of items entered in the "Rec'd" column will be taken out of the outstanding order.
6.2 An invoice for a vendor can be generated from within the AR menu where a PO number is required in the input?
A specific PO is not required in this case. The goods will simply be added to the inventory when the the invoice posts. To be explicit: when you *do* enter a PO number, this workflow leaves the PO untouched -- it does *not* reduce the number of items outstanding in the PO.
6.3 When using the goods receive workflow (Goods – Transfer) which is useful for a picking list workflow to be included, is it only permissble when a warehouse has been defined or can it be used without the existence of any warehouses? (as would be the case for a small business)
The Goods > Transfer workflow is intended to move stock between warehouses. If you want to use picking list type workflows for shipping to customers, I would recommend using orders and the shipping menu (Shipping > Ship for customer shipments ; Shipping > Receive for vendor shipments).
6.4 When is the Stock account in the GL updated – only once an invoice for the vendor has been posted?
Yes. And it's decremented when the inovice for the customer has been posted. I've contemplated making a difference between "being in stock" and "being in inventory" where the former would be "available in the warehouse" and the latter "accounted for in the balance sheet". But I think that's too complex for most smaller businesses, although, if you think differently, I'd love to hear your opinion too.
Regards,
-- Bye,
Erik.
http://efficito.com -- Hosted accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.