Re: migration to sql-ledger

On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Raido Kurel <..hidden..> wrote:

Hi,

On 05/16/2016 08:45 PM, Erik Huelsmann wrote:

Hi,

Welcome to our mailing list!

I have used sql-ledger for years and migrated to ledgersmb 1.2 in 2010.
I started to use ledgersmb 1.4 half a year ago with one company and

Thanks for using LedgerSMB all that time! Your 1.2 experience was pretty good, then, I assume. Is that correct?

You are right, the best of available choises :). We have tried also commercial bookkeeping software, but ware not able to afford any yet. I have tried to migrate to 1.3 also several times, but have not managed. I do not remember exact cause. Was it perl errors because of wrong perl libraries or database conversion problems or both. That's why I used 1.2 so long. Also, in case of 1.4 I still am not able to migrate. I installed new vm and got 1.4 working, but was unable to import v1.2 databases, so I started from clean database again. I also could not import chart of accounts. I managed somehow to export coa from 1.2 to csv but unable to import to 1.4.

planned to migrate others to from ledgersmb 1.2 to 1.4, but I am afraid
I can not. I make mistakes quite often and as transactions and invoices
repair is not possible in 1.4. The correct way of doing reversal
transactions and invoices may be good for big companies, but I have
mostly one person companies.

Actually, the behaviour to require reversing/reposting transactions instead of overwriting them has very little to do with big versus small companies. It has to do with software that is compliant with generally accepted anti-fraud measures in the accounting process.

You are right. But as I am doing bookkeeping myself, I am not so much worried about fraud :).

I have repaired records and invoices using
directly sql prompt or with dump-modify-restore sequence, but this is
also quite frustrating.

I can imagine. May I ask why you choose to use this workflow? I make my share of errors (believe me!), but I use this workflow:

* Open the faulty transaction

* Put a minus in front of all the numbers, f it's an AR/AP transaction, add "-VOID" to the invoice number

* Post the transaction

* Reopen the faulty transaction

* Correct the mistake

* Post as a new transaction

Is there any reason why you couldn't use this workflow? It's completely compliant and probably less error prone and faster than correcting in the SQL dump/window.

Right again. But the reports look much cleaner and easier to read without the old transactions and their reversals. If there would be possible to get reports without wrong invoices and their reversals it might also be the solution.

Most common mistake is putting wrong account to transaction. For example in case of vendor invoice I put the cost of good to assets but later decide to change to expense. I would need to change just the number of account in vendor invoice without any mess in balance sheet and income statement (if I would need to reverse the invoice as a whole). For example in HansaWorld it is possible to change account number in transactions later.

There is this:

I have an open request from a customer who would like me to implement the automated workflow above, but with the push of a button. The idea is that the user does not need to execute all the steps above, but instead, posts the reversal with the same push which posts the correcting transaction. Then, it will work with the same number of pushes on buttons as LedgerSMB 1.2 and SQL Ledger *and* the underlying recording stays compliant.

Would that be a solution for you too?

This sounds great, but it would not resolve the mess in reports as I described above. Of course I name it "mess" but you probably name it "correct".
Another solution I have thought, would be append only auditing log, where all the changes are written, so the fraud would not be possible, but reports ware clean.

Thanks for taking the time to mail us! I hope we can learn from it and maybe we can improve the software in a way that you don't need to migrate to SQL Ledger and everybody gets to benefit? I hope we can discuss your reasons to dump/edit/restore versus the workflow I'm proposing!

I am glad if my thoughts help to improve the program. Another problem is also my poor knowledge of English accounting terminology which makes it especially hard to learn all the possibilities of LedgerSMB. Some things would be much easier if I would know which button to press :).

Ok so as I understand it the problem is that reversals and their re-entries, when shown by default on gl searches clutter them.

I guess I think there are three prongs to a strategy to make this better.

1. First we have the draft interface which lets you review and change a transaction until you decide it is ready to post. So one question is what we can do to make that more useful in terms of avoiding these problems. Are there any reports to add? Note in 1.4 everything can be a draft (including invoices with inventory).

2. Do we need a "voided" flag that can be used to hide voids and voided transactions from some searches?

3. Are there any other workflow issues in the current approach?

Kindest regards,

--

Bye,

Erik.

http://efficito.com -- Hosted accounting and ERP.

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Best Wishes,

Chris Travers

Efficito: Hosted Accounting and ERP. Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.

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