Improvements to 'Manage money' page layout

Glad the December Preview features are now available to all. I like the whole Preview process; ability to opt in/out of the items is great.

Just looked at the new tabs. Very much like the separation of Money In and Money Out.

A minor UI comment: this (I think) is the first time that 'tabs' are shown that don't have a full horizontal rule immediately below the tab buttons. All other parts of ClearBooks with tabs have a two or three pixel horizontal rule, which I think helps give the impression of tabs and 'pages'. These new buttons are more like some parts of MacOS... but not consistent with the rest of ClearBooks. Personal preference: keep the horizontal rule.

Other than that, looks good!

Hi there Simon, thank you for checking out our latest feature in Preview.

We're currently improving the system as you can see, and these are coming out in stages. As you rightly pointed out there is inconsistency currently which will be ongoing until we've completed the improvements throughout the system. Hopefully our changes such as these won't affect your use of Clear Books too much whilst we're upgrading your experience!

Have a lovely day.

Well done! One more idea to tick off : https://secure.clearbooks.co.uk/community/ideas/8671/created

But we've lost the "from" on the transfers tab, ie when you stipulate a bank account and sum, how do you know whether you are transferring it From or To that bank account?

Suggest it should say Bank account (from) or Transfer amount from above account or just a screen prompt?

An excellent observation Paul, we'll see to this :)

I like this, however just one suggestion - sometimes I start typing in the payment details before I have remembered to change to money in or out. Could anything that has been typed in the boxes be transferred into the next tab if we were to change tab after starting to enter?

Agree with Millie: While the previous form very much so had three separate sets of fields, there's no real need on the revised form. It's not possible to actually process more than one transaction at the same time, so the 'Money in', 'Money out' and Transfer buttons are really just a transaction type selector. Some field labels may change slightly to better reflect the transaction type, but they're all consistent concepts between the pages.

I fully appreciate this may mean more than just some HTML and CSS layout changes, but I think Millie may have a point.

Hi Simon - you can use the "Re-create" a bank statement to manually process a number of money in/outs, and even transfers, all in one go, on one screen, in fact the moment I have just two entries, I find this is the quickest way.

The only difference between the single and this multiple method is that the entries in the bank record will be ticked as having been reconciled to a bank statement. As it happens though, at the moment, even if you make entries singly, you can not reconcile them to an imported statement, so you have to go and physically tick them in the bank account, and delete, or ignore, them on the imported statement. So you may as well do the lot from a created bank statement, just make sure they do actually appear on the actual bank statement.

Out of curiosity, would you mind telling me how you currently navigate to the money in/out/transfer page Millie? We are wondering as there is a "Money in" "Money out" and a "Transfer" link on the bank account page, and each link takes you to the relevant form for you to fill out.

Although the suggestions you have made are very valid solutions to improve this particular page, the amount of time and work to change it will out-weight working on improving other features which deserve urgent attention at this point in time.

There needs to be a 'manage money' heading in the new nav I think.

Sorry Kevin but I think that having 3 links on one page, as well as another link, somewhere else (manage money), has always been confusing to new users, one more alternative approach they need to remember.

Personally, I think a huge list of: Import Re-create Money in Money out Transfer against each bank account looks messy. I'd prefer these as column headings, with just a link button/icon next to each account under all the columns

I'm not sure which nav Kevin was referring to. However, on seeing the image in Paul's comment above (and also looking on my system), I think the 'Process money' heading would be better named 'Manage money': consistency of experience is a key part of UI design, and the same term should be used to refer to the same thing. So, 'Manage money' used consistently, rather than 'Manage money' in some places but 'Process money' in another.

Personally, I'm fine with the table of repeated Money in | Money out | Transfer ... but can equally see some people find it messy! :-)

Agree Simon - Manage Money on the main screen instead of Process money, makes good sense.

Good morning all, thank you for the tip. We will change the title to "Manage money" to the table header in the near future.

As it is not part of the project to improve the actual "money in/out" page please allow us extra time to make this improvement.

Update on Change "Process money" to "Manage money" table header label, we have made the changes and you should be able to see this next time you log on.

Kind regards, Michelle

AND we have a "From" in front of the bank account in Transfers.

Well done Michelle, if this was Xero we'd still be waiting next Xmas!

And....you can actually click on transfers now and it actually takes you through to the transfers screen!

Amazing stuff!!

Clever these computers

Hi, To answer Michelle's question about how I use the page. I typically come across the problem when entering the second payment 'on the fly' and have just experienced now. I had entered a cash payment out, then it takes me back to the entry screen to enter another payment and Clearbooks has started to create a statement import with the first transaction. It has defaulted to Money In and I didn't notice this before typing in my Out details. This catches me out every time and as the information isn't passed over when you change 'tab' I have to re-enter.

As Paul mentioned the easiest way would be to 'recreate' a statement to works from to avoid getting the In and Out payments entered incorrectly, however obviously there is no statement work from for petty cash so I typically add these as I go.

Also, I am experiencing problems entering the dates on this Manage Money page. I do have the experimental date typing shortcuts turned on so I don't know if this is perhaps what is causing the issue. It seems to ignore the first number entered so when typing 14 it becomes 44 and 18 becomes 88 even though there are only 31 days in a month!

Many thanks, Millie

Hi Millie

I had the same issue earlier - it would be much nicer if the screen refreshed back where it was eh?!

Re the dates issue - I turned it off a while ago, loved it but it just became too buggy. I suspect that's what you're experiencing now.

Hello again Kevin and Millie, thank you for the feedback once again, we really appreciate this.

The Preview period for this particular feature has ended and so our team has moved on to develop other features in our queue. Just to let you know, we usually have our features in Preview for one month where your feedback is assessed and implemented, so be sure to get your comments in during that period for our future updates.

In terms of the date picker issue defect we will be removing this feature and replacing it with a fresh one very soon, as Kevin says please disable this feature for now to avoid incorrect dates being picked.

Please do this by:

1. Logging in
2. Going to https://secure.clearbooks.co.uk/accounting/settings/user-settings/
3. Untick "Fast entry date fields"
4. Click "Save"

Many thanks.

Millie - the main reason I prefer re-create a bank statement is that you can enter a couple of entries and then later on, when you want to enter one or two more, you can edit your original statement and tack the entries on. You don't have to start of a new one.

I find entering a mix of ins & outs far quicker & easier this way and it is far more obvious whether you are entering an in or an out as you have to enter the sum in the payment or receipt box.

Having said that, you are right, when you are in a rush, it's not as obvious as it could be that the system has taken you back to Money in. Logically, if the system has decided that Money in should be the default, but you change it to Money Out for your first entry, then it should stick on your default for the next entry. You are more likely to know that you have to select Money in, if that's what the next entry is.

Even though Preview only runs for 4 weeks and that's when it would be nice to see key feedback, there's nothing to stop users suggesting improvements, after all 99% of CB never went through Preview.