Manager.io/Manager

Anytime you want to go to previous screen, press "Back" button. It works the same as back button in web-browsers. Very useful when drilling-down in reports.

Shows list of your accounting entites created locally. Keep in mind, if you are using Local Storage, you absolutely need to make sure to back up your data regulary otherwise you are at risk losing your data.

Shows list of your accounting entites created in the cloud. Instead of having your data stored on your local computer, you can have your data to be stored in the cloud fully backed up.

Manager is free accounting software for Windows, Mac and Linux. We work hard to make user interface of Manager as intuitive as possible and there is a good chance you have already figured most of the program. For the sake of completeness, we have written this guide to fill any gaps.

Chart of accounts is a created list of accounts used by a business entity to define each class of items for which money or the equivalent is spent or received. This is where you create your income & expense categories like "Sales", "Interest received", "Rent", "Purchases", "Electricity" and others. You will find Chart of Accounts under Settings tab.

Journal entries are transactions in double-entry accounting system. A journal entry can consist of several line items, each of which is either debit or credit. The total of the debits must equal the total of the credits or the journal entry is said to be "unbalanced". Since journal entries allow direct debit or credit various accounts, it is recommended only users familiar with double-entry accounting create them so don't worry if you are not sure what to do with them.

Trial balance is a list of all the general ledger accounts contained in the ledger of a business. This list will contain the name of the ledger account and the balance of that nominal ledger account.

Profit & loss statement shows financial performance for a particular period. Journal entries can be used to record income and expenses which will have direct impact on financial performance. You will find Profit & Loss Statement under Reports tab.

Balance sheet shows financial position on a particular date. Journal entries can be used to record injections and ejections to assets, liabilities and equity. You will find Balance Sheet under Reports tab.

That's it. A minimal viable implementation of double-entry accounting system. Chart of Accounts is where you setup list of your accounts, Journal Entries is where you record transactions and Profit & Loss Statement and Balance Sheet are your resulting financial statements. 
 
While minimal viable implementation of double-entry accounting system is useful for students learning the basics, you likely need more for efficient day-to-day bookkeeping. And this is exactly where plugins come to play. 
 
Plugins can extend this minimal implementation in all imaginable ways giving you ability to customize Manager to match your needs and as your business keep growing or changing, plugins will keep cateriring for these changes so the accounting system you have now will continue evolving together with you in future. 
 
You can find list of all plugins under Plugins tab when you open any accounting entity. Clicking on name of any plugin will provide you with a guide on how to use the plugin. We recommend you not to enable all plugins at once but take little steps. Enable and learn each plugin one by one in isolation because once you gain perfect understanding of individual plugins, you will gain perfect understanding of the whole accounting system.

Chart of accounts is a created list of accounts used by a business entity to define each class of items for which money or the equivalent is spent or received. This is where you create your income & expense categories like "Sales", "Interest received", "Rent", "Purchases", "Electricity" and others. You will find Chart of Accounts under Settings tab.

Chart of accounts is a created list of accounts used by a business entity to define each class of items for which money or the equivalent is spent or received. This is where you create your income and expense categories like "Sales", "Interest received", "Rent", "Purchases", "Electricity" and others. You will find Chart of Accounts under Settings tab.

Let's have a look at Local Storage & Cloud Storage where you will be spending most of your time while using Manager. 
 
When you create new accounting entity, one thing you might notice right away is that Manager is completely modular. Modularity is controlled by many plugins which can be enabled or disabled to achieve perfect fit for given business. 
 
All features which you encounter are either part of core functionality or are provided by plugins. 
 
Core functionality is essentially the minimal viable implementation of double-entry accounting system. It's so simple, you will be surprised to see how simple accounting system can be. What exactly consists of core functionality?