warpyb1

May 14, 2010

Hi DJ,

Firstly thank you for getting back to me with reference to this .

The report that EA generates does in deed show all these items but it is to very little use and this is what we need to work together to resolve.

Currently the report that EA generates is a transaction report - showing the date of sales, invoice numbers, account balance, total invoices and total payments(With no reference) this is my problem you see.

When we want to know what invoices are still outstanding and send a statement to our customers there is no way of showing just this.

What we need to be able to show is the following,

Between two dates, the open invoices that still require payments

for example

1002 - £45.10

1003 - £10.00

1004 - £10.50

Total Outstanding - £65.10

Even with the soft payment reference the statement doesn’t show what the payment was referenced to it just shows - as in your example a cash payment - which could be for anything!

Say a customer pays a half balance on an invoice - how on earth would you ever be able to track back the outstanding payment and what it was for?! - at the moment we cant.

What the system needs to be able to do is as follows,

1. In the latest version we need to have the ability to manually amend the softpayment column on a specific customer. this way we can amend all those clients that have already paid in the system.

2. In the statement view for unpaid accounts we need to be able to look at a customer and for this report to show the softpayment data in the report.

Ie if we add an invoice number to the softpayment or a description of payment then we can reference this back on the report.

Ie if I pay off the 45.10 in the above invoice then on the report it will show that the following

1003 - £10.00

1004 - £10.50

Payments

45.10 - credit "Insert Softpayment" 1002 "Insert Date"

Total Outstanding - £20.50

What do you think.

Secondly - I still have some reservations as to why the programmers can not see the importants of having an invoice structure - If a customer calls me and has an account question. We should be able to look at their customer record and see that they have paid x invoices and their associated numbers and they have the following invoices outstanding to be paid.

An example as follows -

Customer A calls to make payment to their account - by their records they owe £45 on the account EA states that they actually owe 150 - customer A asks OK - this being the case show me the outstanding invoices and I will make payment.

In the above example - as per your programmers way of doing things - we cant offer our customer what invoices havent been paid - as we cant see them for our selves.

Not only this but the way in which your programmers are rewriting the system makes the EA product more of a bank account then an actual sales ledger for people to run their businesses from. - actually even with a bank account you can still reference payments in reports and stements

A bank account a large collection of money.

An invoicing / accounting program - a collection of money owing and paid with readable references.

DJ - sometimes the comments that we all post on here can come accross as a rant - but they are not. We are trying to run our own businesses and we have chosen your software to give us the ability to account for transactions.

We just need your programmers to realise that you cant just take away the ability to see a paid or not paid invoice. We have to have the transactional data showing the invoices being paid off.

And if it means that we need to create a new backup set and starting a fresh then so be it - give us the ability to reconsile our exsiting data from one version to the other using a wizard - or a printed report so that we can type the details in.

I apprecaiate your commments.

Mick, ***(edit - I responded the same time as a developer - see above post - I think we are actually saying the same thing)***

I would like to make sure the tech support agent logged the report suggestion properly. The customer statement lists all customer invoices by selectable period, all customer payments during selected period, and the outstanding balance, all in date sequential order. I am not sure I follow what you are looking for beyond this statement report that would be achievable in light of the payment reference issues that have already been discussed extensively in this forum, especially since EA intentionally allows payments to be entered against a customer account without an associated invoice reference being required so that an account balance can be paid partially or in full without reference to any invoices. Are you just looking for an unpaid invoices report by customer? If so this would not really be an Aged Debtors Report.

Common definition of your report - "The Aged Debtors Detail report contains detailed information about all the amounts that customers owe to the company. The report shows the amounts at a selected date, by listing the transactions that make up the amounts the customers owe. Transactions can include invoices, credit notes or customer payments."

When I look at a customer statement this is exactly what is being displayed. Just looking for some clarity here if development is going to be trying to create a report for the next release.

DJ

May 13, 2010

Reply -

Worked with your issue this morning and I could find a report like the one you describe. To me it sounds like an excellent report to have so I will send it to the suggestion box.

May 12, 2010

Email sent to NCH regarding an Age debtors report as there is no way of seeing a correct simple up todate balance view....

Mick

Dear Team,

I need to know if we are able to produce the following report

A statement for a specific customer, showing the outstanding balance and the associated invoices against that balance.

Currently the statements that the system produces is a transaction list opposed to a list of currently outstanding invoices.

It is important that we have a statement report that we can send off to our clients on a monthly bases.

Please can you let me know if we can get this sorted ASAP ?

Also I have paid for telephone support and I don’t seem to have a number for you please can you confirm this back when you reply to this email.

Many thank s

Mick Sheehan,

May 4, 2010

Hi all,

Am I doing this right

My question is when I purchase something from a supplier I get given an invoice. I currently post this invoice in the payments section of EA and assign the total balance to their account.

Now my question is - say I brought this item for the business ie, a desk or a printer. I still get the invoice sent through to me and I still post it in the purchase section of EA. Under their account but how do I get EA to know that the item I have just purchased is for the business ?

Is there a special way of inputting this ?

Thanks

Mick

April 28, 2010

Hi There,

What we need to look at then is an easy way for us to be able to remove these invoices from our 'awaiting payment' list.

If we can do this then we can at least get half way there with the developers logic in marking invoices paid and not paid.

If we could have a tick box or simular so that we can make these changes our end so that we can start using the new product. keep in mind however for this to work correctly the tick box shouldnt make any changes to our balance sheets as they would have already been accounted for.

Also we will need to concider the following,

A we can not mark an unpaid invoice as paid unless it is already posted as being paid in the software from the previous verion .

B if we do make any as paid and make a mistake we should be able to run some sort of view that allows us to revert this back.

Mick

Hi,

As an update I also wanted to mention that the ability to pay on an invoice already marked with a soft payment reference is definitely a bug and will be fixed in next release. Invoices paid in full AND with a reference should not have the ability to make a payment from the invoice list screen against the already referenced and paid-in-full invoice.

Additionally I was correct in my above assumption. Migrating from any version prior to the soft payment reference, there is no way to account for the PAID status in the older version when migrating because there was no payment reference in the old version. This makes it impossible to maintain the integrity of the payment reference system in the new version AND bring the old "PAID" status across.

Hope this makes sense.

DJ

April 12, 2010

Now we are cooking with gas!

Hi,

OK - I understand now. The problem lies with transaction status when upgrading from a previous version.

I will have a chat with the team about this.

Yes if you could send me your backup file in case they ask for it.

I will send you a separate email with my NCH email address for you to send your file.

DJ

April 9, 2010

Hi DJ / Graham,

I agree with the commends below - I think both of us originally completed invoices and marked them as paid using the invoice view oppose to applying a customer payment.

This being the case and as you rightly point out we now have data which is in 'Limbo' when you upgrade to the new versions of the invoice.

My suggestion would be to allow a column for us to manually mark these invoices (Produced in 3.04) as paid and once marked as paided removed from the invoicing list.

This would then bring us back to where we should be with the new version of the system.

In version 3.04 you can very easly see these invoices by going to the apply customer payment sectioin and either manually en tering the invoice number or by selecting from the customer. which works really really well.

Mick

Hi DJ,

If I revert everything back to version 3.04 it is all perfect, all reports are correct and everything marries up as it should.

However as I said in the new version if you select a customer to pay an outstanding invoice it is all fine as well. The problem only arises when you then want to select an individual invoice (optional) to apply that payment against.

I think the issue is because I have pre existing data from earlier versions of the combined EA/EI where you had the status column saying if an invoice was paid or open. Once I put on the new version this column was no longer available and the program has no idea what was alread paid and what was open. So it still allows you to select an optional invoice to pay that has already been paid.

I understand what your saying about the soft cross reference and I think that side of it will only work correct if you have a new install of the new version and start everything fresh. It does not work on any pre existing data I have found because there is no cross reference to payments so you can just select any invoice you like and select it multiple times.

Is there any way the developers can add something in that area so that if you do use the optional invoice after you select the customer that it can't be clicked a 2nd, 3rd or fourth time.

If you like I can zip my backup file and send it to you so you can test if you like to see what I mean.

Graham

April 8, 2010

Hi Graham,

Have you passed this over to the support email ? It looks like NCH hare taking some interest in the forum and also the issues that we are brining up with the software ?

Are there any new features ?

Mick

Just downloaded 3.29 and once again it still has the same issues as it earlier versions.

Once you select a customer to receive the payment if you want also select an optional invoice to recored the payment against you can still select any invoice and do it multiple times.

If you accidently do this it screws up all your reports.

Graham

March 30, 2010

This is the follow on email to Support at NCH.

Issue with the web access in version 3.04 and 3.28

Dear team I am about to release the software to be used by multiple users however when they go to add new items to an invoice there is no way of typing a description or amend the cost of the item. Nor does it actually put any prices in appart from the item name and thats it!

Please see attached screen shot - please can you let me know why this is? This means that I will not be able to have multiple users using the system which I thought is what the web access was for?

Many thanks

Mick Sheehan

Kind Regards

Michael Sheehan

Managing Director

Zest IT Solutions

Tel : 0844 504 3883

Mob : 07986344275

Fax : 0844 504 3226

www.zest-solutions.com

Group Company Number 7077582 - VAT Number 980 8431 96

This e-mail is confidential and for use by the addressee only. If the message is received by anyone other than the addressee, please return the message to the sender by replying to it and then delete the message from your computer. Internet e-mails are not necessarily secure. Zest Solutions Group does not accept responsibility for changes made to this message after it was sent.

Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to avoid the transmission of viruses, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the onward transmission, opening or use of this message and any other attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data. No responsibility is accepted by Zest Solutions Group in this regard and the recipient should carry out such virus and other checks as it considers appropriate.

Zest Solutions Group do not accept any responsibility for the use made by the contents of this email by third parties who are not associated with Zest Solutions Group.

-----Original Message-----

From: supportnch@nchsoftware.com [mailto:supportnch@nchsoftware.com]

Sent: 15 March 2010 20:05

To: Michael Sheehan

Subject: Re: Pty5 ExpressAccounts TechnicalSupportRequest Windows

Hi,

The programmers are currently working on express invoice to address the issues.

I have also sent your suggestions to the programmers so they are aware of the things you have found.

There should be a new version of the software released in about 2 weeks or so.

Regards,

Adam

NCH Software Support Team

http://www.nchsoftware.com

Note: while we make every attempt to give accurate advice, under our Reasonable Service Terms, the amount of time we can spend researching is limited. If you intend to rely on the advice for critical, dangerous or medical activities you must retain independent consultants to check your systems are safe and redundant. NCH Software and its employees' liability for loss is strictly limited to the amount paid for the software or support.

On Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:41:14 +1100, Michael Sheehan <Michael.Sheehan@zest-solutions.com> wrote:

> Dear Nik,

>

> Thank you for getting back to me in regards to this issue.

>

> I have since had to download and go back to version 3.04

>

> 1.) What version was your old version? It might say on your invoice or if you still have it loaded somewhere, you can click on "Help" and "About Express Accounts" and it will tell you on the logo screen.

> 3.04 was using 3.26 but it allowed me to pay off invoices

> twice and also invoices from different customers - shouldnt be able to

> do this

> 2.) Were you having these same problems with your old version? If so did you notice when it started?

> I have checked the system and it was because it allowed me to pay some invoices off twice, in version 3.26 there is no way of knowing what invoices are still owing or not.

> 3.) Did you do a backup before you upgraded, if so do you still have a copy of it?

> Yes I have restored from my latest backup.

> 4.) Have you tried re-downloading the product?

> No as it causes so many issues

> 5.) Are you tracking many client accounts?

> Not that many

>

> When you release a new version can you tell me what updates and fixes have been applied - I can then post it to everyone else ?

>

> It seems to me that the new version of the software could be very good indeed although it appears to have some very major issues that the programmers need to address before it becomes useful.

>

> 1, If they are to remove the invoice paid and open column then they

> need to make sure there is some where you can see what are paid and not paid 2, Along these same lines if they are to remove this column then when you are applying payments to a customer why would you want to see the already paid invoices. You just need to see the current open ones so that you don’t accidently select an already paid invoice.

> 3, You shouldn’t be able to pay an already paid invoice 4, You should

> be able to make multiple payments to an invoice ie, cash and cheque but you shouldn’t be able to over pay any invoice more than the total amount shown.

> 5, When applying customer payments the template selection button should be a drop down list and it should be moved to the top where you select the date, as when you get to the button and select a template it deletes any data you have added.

> 6,In version 3.26 when you have more than three items in your list and press enter or TAB it deletes one of the items in your list and you need to reload the form.

> 7, In version 3.26 when you get to the bottom of the invoice list in the main view it is very difficult to get the system to move to the next item list.

> 8, In version 3.26 when you have a blank items field the software deletes the line completely even though it has been recorded. I think back in version 3.03 you were able to add free text to the invoice list and it didn’t delete any information - I have since lost 3 invoices in the system due to this error and I cannot recover.

> 9, When you apply a customer payment you should be given an option once the payment has been processed to print / email a remittance to show that it has been paid to the customer.

> 10, In 3.26 when you convert a quote to an invoice it should move from the quotes list and turn in to an open invoice in the invoice list.

> 11, In 3.26 If you take one of your old unpaid invoices and save as a draft, then 'record' you end up with two different invoice numbers for the same invoice. One of which appears is your unpaid records list and the original one which does not appear there even though it should.

>

> Please let me know your comments regarding the above list

>

> Mick

>

> Kind Regards

> Michael Sheehan

> Managing Director

>

> Zest IT Solutions

> Tel : 0844 504 3883

> Mob : 07986344275

> Fax : 0844 504 3226

> www.zest-solutions.com

>

> Group Company Number 7077582 - VAT Number 980 8431 96 This e-mail is

> confidential and for use by the addressee only. If the message is received by anyone other than the addressee, please return the message to the sender by replying to it and then delete the message from your computer. Internet e-mails are not necessarily secure. Zest Solutions Group does not accept responsibility for changes made to this message after it was sent.

> Whilst all reasonable care has been taken to avoid the transmission of viruses, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the onward transmission, opening or use of this message and any other attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data. No responsibility is accepted by Zest Solutions Group in this regard and the recipient should carry out such virus and other checks as it considers appropriate.

> Zest Solutions Group do not accept any responsibility for the use made by the contents of this email by third parties who are not associated with Zest Solutions Group.

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: supportnch@nchsoftware.com [mailto:supportnch@nchsoftware.com]

> Sent: 12 March 2010 22:45

> To: Michael Sheehan

> Subject: Re: Pty5 ExpressAccounts TechnicalSupportRequest Windows

>

> I looked through our developers Log of issues and fixes. I found nothing about anyone having problems with corrupted or incorrect total in your client payments. We recently upgraded our in house accounting to version and all the totals seemed to convert over just fine. May i ask you a few questions.

> 1.) What version was your old version? It might say on your invoice or if you still have it loaded somewhere, you can click on "Help" and "About Express Accounts" and it will tell you on the logo screen.

> 2.) Were you having these same problems with your old version? If so did you notice when it started?

> 3.) Did you do a backup before you upgraded, if so do you still have a copy of it?

> 4.) Have you tried re-downloading the product?

> 5.) Are you tracking many client accounts?

>

> Regards,

>

> Nik

> NCH Software Support Team

>

> http://www.nchsoftware.com

>

> Note: while we make every attempt to give accurate advice, under our Reasonable Service Terms, the amount of time we can spend researching is limited. If you intend to rely on the advice for critical, dangerous or medical activities you must retain independent consultants to check your systems are safe and redundant. NCH Software and its employees' liability for loss is strictly limited to the amount paid for the software or support.

>

> On Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:09:22 -0600, Michael.Sheehan@zest-solutions.com wrote:

> > ExpressAccounts TechnicalSupportRequest Windows:

> > Please can someone call me urgently.

> >

> > I really need to sort out what has happened with my data since you released 3.25 as it seems to have screwed around with my clients payments and now I dont know where or what the data is doing in either the older versions or the newest one!

> >

> > This is unacceptable.

> >

> > I have paid for the premium support package.

> >

> > Mick

> > +++ This customer has PAID SUPPORT

> > Extra Information (1): 3.26

> > Extra Information (2): winvista

March 30, 2010

I have just tired the new version - so you say that you can part pay an invoice so it looks like they have listened to some of the points we have made.

I have tried the web front end to see how the version will work when I start to have multiple users and I have just tried to make an invoice clicking on add a new item. And guess what it doesnt work!

Mick

yes it's just stupid that haven't address the issue you outlined and I have outlined many times over.

Surely it can't be that hard to still have the status column on the invoice so you know what is going on.

One part I like in 3.28 is you can now have part payments.

eg you have a customer owning $500 and they pay you $200 so it will correctly show the balance of $300 owing.

Using the above example it would be nice to be able to apply that part payment to a particular invoice, if you know what it is. So after you select the customer to apply the payment, you then click the invoice button and then thick the invoices the client wishes to pay.

It appears to me this issue of not knowing what invoices are paid now becase it uses a payment ref column and that is only valid for any new invoices and payments, so if you have 100's of existing invoices you have no idea what is paid or open, if this little glitch is fixed it would be wonderful.

Graham

March 30, 2010

this is a really bad bit of programing logic.

I am guessing that they have decided to change the way in which the database works to make something else work or improve another feature.

Knowing programers myself there is no reason why an already paid notification can not be added to the system .

I am going to submit a suppoort question to them as well.

Its surely a simple fix !?

They really havent read my last email have they?!

Mick

Hi Mick,

yeh have emailed in yet another bug report. This is absolutly stupid.

GTIM.

I see what you are saying but when you bring up a customer name it still shows every single invoice that customer has ever had, you can just tick the invoice you like even if it is paid or not and apply another payment. I know it's not the correct way to do it but it should not be allowed to happen it is so easy to make a mistake and and do it. In my opinion EA should come up with a message saying that invoice is already paid and not allow you to tick that one or have it shown but greyed out or something

As a test I paid the same invoice 10 times and each time just checked the P & L and it was all screwed up, now that has got to be a bug

Graham

March 29, 2010

Your joking!

Have you emailed support ?

Mick

Just downloaded version 3.28 to test and it also still has the same issue where you can receive money on an invoice that is already paid and you can do it multiple times.

How frustrating STILL

Graham

March 26, 2010

Although I think we welcome your comments GTIM - I have to say that actually the fact that the system doesn this now and in previous systems didnt makes the program very clunky and unusable - I have downgraded back to 3.04 awaiting the new release from NCH -

From the FAQ: Is it possible to apply payment to an invoice ?

Express Accounts uses an account based payment system where payments are applied to the customer's account - not to a specific invoice. This makes it able to handle advance payments or payments without specified invoices much better. When you receive a payment the payment is applied to a customer not a specific invoice. You can however enter a soft cross-reference between a payment and invoice. This is for reference and easy of use only and is optional.

And there is "Payment Ref" column, that is a soft cross-reference between a payment and invoice. But this is just soft reference. Payments are applied to a customer not a spcified invoice

March 26, 2010

im not sure why you would want to connect a scanner to the program - as I am aware there is no way to attach or put document handling in the system.

March 20, 2010

Hi Graham,

Go back to 3.04 it works well - come April I will clear all my data down and start a fresh for the new year.

If you look in the NCH folder in program files you should see the version there.

I agree that 3.26 is stupidly buggy and it should never have been allowed out to market with out these things being looked at.

mick

This is a real pain that NCH will not respond to any bugh reports I have now submitted over 50 for version 3.26 and had no response from NCH at all.

If they use the software themselves surley they can see you can pay an invoice multiple times and thee many other things wrong with it.

Hopefully they will fix it soon. I have no idea where things are up too now in it.

Graham

March 18, 2010

This is the reply email that was sent to NCH asking for help with the newest version of the software....

Please feel free to look through and let me know if we missed any bits out ?

Mick

Dear Nik,

Thank you for getting back to me in regards to this issue.

I have since had to download and go back to version 3.04

1.) What version was your old version? It might say on your invoice or if you still have it loaded somewhere, you can click on "Help" and "About Express Accounts" and it will tell you on the logo screen.

3.04 was using 3.26 but it allowed me to pay off invoices twice and also invoices from different customers - shouldnt be able to do this

2.) Were you having these same problems with your old version? If so did you notice when it started?

I have checked the system and it was because it allowed me to pay some invoices off twice, in version 3.26 there is no way of knowing what invoices are still owing or not.

3.) Did you do a backup before you upgraded, if so do you still have a copy of it?

Yes I have restored from my latest backup.

4.) Have you tried re-downloading the product?

No as it causes so many issues

5.) Are you tracking many client accounts?

Not that many

When you release a new version can you tell me what updates and fixes have been applied - I can then post it to everyone else ?

It seems to me that the new version of the software could be very good indeed although it appears to have some very major issues that the programmers need to address before it becomes useful.

1, If they are to remove the invoice paid and open column then they need to make sure there is some where you can see what are paid and not paid 2, Along these same lines if they are to remove this column then when you are applying payments to a customer why would you want to see the already paid invoices. You just need to see the current open ones so that you don’t accidently select an already paid invoice.

3, You shouldn’t be able to pay an already paid invoice 4, You should be able to make multiple payments to an invoice ie, cash and cheque but you shouldn’t be able to over pay any invoice more than the total amount shown.

5, When applying customer payments the template selection button should be a drop down list and it should be moved to the top where you select the date, as when you get to the button and select a template it deletes any data you have added.

6,In version 3.26 when you have more than three items in your list and press enter or TAB it deletes one of the items in your list and you need to reload the form.

7, In version 3.26 when you get to the bottom of the invoice list in the main view it is very difficult to get the system to move to the next item list.

8, In version 3.26 when you have a blank items field the software deletes the line completely even though it has been recorded. I think back in version 3.03 you were able to add free text to the invoice list and it didn’t delete any information - I have since lost 3 invoices in the system due to this error and I cannot recover.

9, When you apply a customer payment you should be given an option once the payment has been processed to print / email a remittance to show that it has been paid to the customer.

10, In 3.26 when you convert a quote to an invoice it should move from the quotes list and turn in to an open invoice in the invoice list.

11, In 3.26 If you take one of your old unpaid invoices and save as a draft, then 'record' you end up with two different invoice numbers for the same invoice. One of which appears is your unpaid records list and the original one which does not appear there even though it should.

Please let me know your comments regarding the above list

Mick

March 18, 2010

This was the email I sent back to them .....