Sales invoices with part-exchange

Idea suggested by Stephen Youngs FCCA 11 years ago

Where a business takes goods in part exchange this can presently be processed in ClearBooks by including a sales invoice line with a negative quantity. This calculates the VAT correctly (if any), and the invoice total agrees with the net amount the customer has to pay. The problem is that the purchase is incorrectly included in sales on the VAT100 rather than purchases. Whilst the VAT payable is fine, it is still technically a non-compliance. It would be good to have, perhaps a tick box option, next to every sales invoice line, to indicate that line is for goods taken in part exchange. When the box is ticked the item would record properly as a purchase (and if a stock item as an addition to stock) rather than a negative sale, with perhaps a further option of a customisable standard comment above the invoice line concerned. Not all businesses would need this, so perhaps have it as a toggle in settings with a default of 'off'. It would be useful for anyone dealing in second hand goods, particularly motor traders.

Other options for processing the trade-in, notably separate sales and purchase invoices, are a poor alternative as they cause problems with traceability, take longer to input, are confusing to customers (the paper trail doesn't follow what they believe to be happening), and actually what paperwork do you give the customer?? If you give them an off-system invoice, how do you then enter that in ClearBooks taking into account the fact that the sales invoice number is also the purchase invoice number??

4 Replies

I agree and it is high time this is dealt with. There are some fundamental flaws in Clearbooks that really aren't that specialised - until you get them fixed you are potentially ruling out many businessman who might otherwise consider using the CB service. This issue and the lack of Margin Scheme VAT accounting is making me consider terminating my subscription

I think ClearBooks are missing a trick with this, as it would be a feature that would set their system apart from others and appeal directly to all sorts of dealers in second hand goods (motor vehicles, agricultural machinery, antiques etc) who presently feel unable to move their business records into the cloud. It's only when substantial niches like this begin to be catered for that cloud accounting will really gain traction.

It has to be said though that off the shelf desktop systems by and large have been equally bad at meeting the needs of this sort of user, who are often driven to using specialist software that is hugely more expensive. Better stock management, including one-off items as opposed to replenished items, coupled with the facility to handle trade-in goods would open up the system for some serious new business. It might need some targeted marketing, but what's so hard about that?

Hi Stephen

Thanks for raising the profile on this topic again.

We do realise that there is potential to add a niche to the product by adding this feature which would probably give us an edge over our competitors. It is the resource constraint that is being our impediment. However we are now drawing a road map for future development and improvement of Clear Books where we will see if we have scope to add this as an improvement feature. The road map will be shared with Clear Books customers some time this year so that you can see what we are planning to do in the medium term.

Best regards

Latha

Does anyone have a sales invoice stencil for a second hand car showroom?

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