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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: REVISION HISTORY AND BUGS / FEATURES > Revision History - Version 1.00 to 2018 |
This page lists the history of changes and fixes from the first official release (version 1.00) program, through to the last release in 2018. The changes prior to that are on the Revision History - Beta Versions page, and the ones subsequent to that are on the Revision History - Latest Version page.
•Major New Feature: Importing downloaded online banking transaction files is now supported in the program.
•Previously, if ACCOUNTS was already running, you could not start an Import of a file containing transactions (for instance, one exported from DONATION's Bank Deposits feature), or a restore of a database backup or emailed backup, by opening or double-clicking such files. Now those actions do work if ACCOUNTS is already running.
•On the Entity Names window, we removed the line for Cash Flow Statement, because the program doesn't contain a report with that name or purpose, so it's misleading to have a name for it shown there.
•Corrected the fact that Read Only users were allowed to Print Cheques. Also adjusted a few minor places in other windows that allowed editing for Read Only users.
•Removed the menu option Tools ⇒ Fix novaPDF Problems, because saving to PDF files in ACCOUNTS is no longer ever done by using the novaPDF program.
•Fixed a bug introduced in release 2.12: In Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison, a mystery number had appeared at the right of every line of data, that continued onto an otherwise blank extra page.
•Fixed a bug for the Web Network Version: The menu option Upload/Download ⇒ Download Web Database to Local was failing with an error message. (That menu option was normally only needed if you decided to switch back from the Web Network Version to another version such as Standalone.)
•Fixed a bug for the Web Network Version: If it was an Evaluation version, or your payment had expired, it could prompt you to retrieve a license key from our server, even though that version does not need and cannot use license keys.
•Fixed a bug in the initial setup of a database: If you canceled the window for specifying what accounts you want to start with, when you restarted it would not prompt for that again, but rather open up with no accounts, which would cause problems. Also seemed to solve a problem where you get to the main window after that initial setup and no accounts show, when accounts do exist.
•Fixed a bug on the main window: any accounts with only future-dated transactions in them were being omitted from the list on the right side of the window. (They will now be present, and will show a balance of $0, since those balances are always as of today's date.)
•Fixed a bug in the Journal Entry List window: it was supposed to scroll to show the latest journal entry when it opened, but it did not do so. Now it does.
•Added a scroll bar to the list of bills in the Edit Bill Payment window, to handle the unusual case where there were more bills included in that one payment than would fit in whatever size you have resized that window to.
•Fixed a bug that somehow recently appeared in the Register window: if you made changes in the empty row at the bottom of the window, then clicked into another row, or tried to close the window, without first pressing Enter to save your changes, you were not being prompted about saving those changes. (There was no such problem when editing existing transactions.)
•Fixed an obscure and unlikely bug. (This note is mostly for ourselves, as the bug is very unlikely to occur to users!) If you are running the Web Network Version and download your web database to local, then switch to a local version (likely Standalone), then re-restore the backup file that was stored as part of that download process, the program will halt with an error about not being able to execute sp_validate_connection. You subsequently cannot open the program, because it keeps getting that same error.
•When a new user with a so-far empty database was trying to start by restoring an Internet Backup from a previous user in their organization, the window that came up to prompt them for the Unique ID for Internet Backups didn't allow typing or directly pasting into the entry field for that value. (You had to use a Paste ID from Clipboard button.) Now you can directly type or paste into that field, to avoid confusion.
•Fixed a bug introduced in release 2.12: restoring backups, and the Database ⇒ Validate Database menu option, would fail with a technical error message if you upgraded from a previous release to 2.12 by using the Tools ⇒ Check for Updates menu option. Now Tools ⇒ Check for Updates is fine.
•Added drill-down capability for fields in many reports that include an Income Statement. Values in those reports for accounts that don't have sub-accounts (the ones you can post transactions to) are shown in blue and you can click on them. Clicking on them shows a detail report of the transactions included in the displayed total for that account that you clicked on. A Back button at the top-left corner of the detail report takes you back to the original report.
•The Journal Entry List window, reached via the Journal Entries quick link on the main window, or the Actions ⇒ Journal Entries menu option, now has a Duplicate button that can be used to create an editable duplicate version of an existing journal entry. That will be particularly useful for journal entry transactions that cannot be viewed on a register window, namely ones that do not include any asset, liability or fund accounts. (For journal entries that can be viewed on a register window, you can instead use the Copy and Paste or Memorized Transaction facilities there.) There is also an equivalent Duplicate button on the Journal Entry Editing window, which is enabled if you have entered that window through the Edit button on the Journal Entry List window, and have not made any changes.
•Restoring database backups is now done in a new way internally. (You should not see any difference.) With this change, users of the BitDefender anti-virus software, who have its SafeFiles module turned on, will no longer have to turn off that module to be able to successfully restore.
•A similar change was made to the Database ⇒ Validate Database menu option, doing it in a new way that should not cause problems if BitDefender anti-virus has its SafeFiles module turned on. Also, that menu option is now allowed for the Local Network Client version.
•Fixed a error introduced by release 2.10: You can now cut/copy/paste transactions between different register windows, as you could in releases prior to 2.10. Of course you can still also do it within the same register window.
•Fixed a bug when first initializing a Web Network Version, when you already had another version of ACCOUNTS on that computer, with some data in it. After uploading your local database, it would erroneously take you to a setup window that applied only to new empty databases. (Exiting and re-starting the program at that point would still, fortunately, take you to the properly uploaded database.)
•Fixed a bug introduced by release 2.10: The Delete button in the Bill List window didn't work, giving a technical error message about "DataWindow does not have UPDATE capability."
•Fixed a bug in the Tools ⇒ Check for Updates menu option, for users of the Web Network Version - in some cases it could incorrectly switch them to the Local Network Server version instead of retaining the correct Web Network Version. (Specifically, this would happen to users upgrading to release 2.10 or higher, from releases prior to that.)
•Especially for users of the 5 simultaneous user Web Network Version, made some changes that may speed up some activities that read program settings from the database. However, they also mean that if another simultaneous user changes certain settings, your program may not "see" those changes until you exit and restart it.
•Fixed crashes in the program introduced by bugs in Release 2.10: In the Register window, using any of the popup menu options Cut, Copy or Memorize would cause an error message and a crash.
•Added the Reference Number field to the Bill Payment and Edit Bill Payment windows, so that similar bills could be more easily distinguished before choosing to pay them.
•Fixed a problem experienced by some users where the Save button in the Opening Balances window didn't work in some cases, so they could not be saved.
•Fixed a bug introduced by a recent version: if you edited an existing bill payment from the Bill Payment List window, and made changes, you would get an error message when you tried to Save, and the save would not be completed successfully.
•Added the Tools Menu option Explore Temp Directory, which can be helpful in some tech support situations.
•In windows with a drop-down list of Tax Codes, ones with no associated accounts are now omitted from the list, since they would have no effect.
•This version was created with a new release of the program we use to create ACCOUNTS, called PowerBuilder 2017 R3.
•Fixed a problem introduced by version 2.05 where in the Standalone version, in some places in the program (including when switching databases, or after making a database backup) you could get a message that didn't make sense, like: "You are using the Standalone version of ACCOUNTS, but your license key is not authorized for that. Rather, it is authorized for the normal Standalone version ...".
•There's some new behaviour in date fields, in addition to the existing keyboard shortcuts for them: When you enter a date field, normally its first component (before the first slash or dash) will become selected (highlighted). Pressing the left or right arrow keys or the forward slash key (/) will cycle through the three components of the date field (month, day and year, in whatever order they are displayed on your computer). That can make it easy to just change one of those components, for instance the day of the month. Once it is highlighted, just type what you want to replace it with - there's no need to delete what is there first.
•When you are setting up a new empty database for the first time, if you fill in and save the Organization Info window, then when it comes to the Options for Chart of Accounts setup window you click the Cancel button, previously that would undo what you did in the Organization Info window before exiting the program. Now it no longer undoes what you did in the Organization Info window, and thus when you start the program again, it just goes straight back to the Options for Chart of Accounts window.
•Added some text to the Chart of Accounts help topic to point out that you cannot delete the program's original General Fund, and to the Editing Accounts help topic to point out that the General Fund account cannot have sub-accounts. Also, the original General Fund account can now be identified because when you hover over its Number or Name in the Chart of Accounts window, a message to that effect will pop up.
•Made another correction to the new feature in release 4.04b where entering any arithmetic operator (+, -, *, /, or an opening parenthesis) in the field, other than a leading minus sign, popped up the Calculator window. It also popped up if you typed an x or X for times, which was intended, but unfortunately it also popped up if you typed Ctrl+X or Alt+X, which was not intended, and has been corrected.
•Fixed a bug in the update installation program for the Web Network Version, when you use Tools ⇒ Check for Updates: you would get an error message like "On Post Install ... Attempt to concatenate global pwd1 (a nil value) ...". Although that message should not have come up, it did not actually indicate any problem with the update.
•Fixed a problem that could occur when registering from the program, if your Windows username included a space (like "Dan Cooperstock"), and your default web browser was not Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge. In those cases, the registration could fail. This same problem could also affect certain other cases where the program opens web-type files that are on your local computer.
•Fixed a problem where the new automated license key retrieval could try to get a license key that was already older than the version of ACCOUNTS that you are running, which would not have been appropriate.
•Fixed a missing field (INTU_FID) in the database table for the chart of accounts that was causing error messages, though only in the Web Network Version.
•Made a correction to the new feature in release 2.04b where entering any arithmetic operator (+, -, *, /, or an opening parenthesis) in the field, other than a leading minus sign, popped up the Calculator window. It should have popped up only when you had actually just typed one of those characters, but instead, it would pop up any time you typed any character at all, if one of those arithmetic operators was contained in what you had already typed.
•Made a change to data entry and editing of currency amounts: Negative amounts are now always displayed with a leading minus sign, even if your display format for negative currency values, set in Windows Control Panel's Region and Language tool, says to instead use parentheses for negative numbers. That change was required because if a number was displayed as say "(1.23)", to mean negative 1.23, and you made any change to it then moved out of the field, you would get a message saying "That is not a valid number".
•The Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Administer All Users window for the Web Network Version now allows Administrators to reset passwords for other users, and unlock other users who have become locked out by too many unsuccessful login attempts.
•Many fields for entering currency amounts will now open a new Calculator window, if you enter any arithmetic operator (+, -, *, /, or an opening parenthesis) in the field, other than a leading minus sign.
•If you are prompted to insert Recurring Transactions when you start the program, and they change any of the balances, those balances are updated on the main window when you return to it. (That sort of updating of the balances on the main window was already happening for every other window that can insert transactions.) The revision history for release 2.04 originally said this correction was included in that release, but it actually only appeared in this release.
•For users of the Standalone and Local Network versions, the software licensing has been changed. Now in most cases, if you have an Internet connection, new or updated license keys can be retrieved directly and instantly from our server, rather than having to send an email request to Software4Nonprofits and wait for a person to send you the key.
•Creation of new empty databases (for instance during an initial install of the program, or with the File ⇒ New Database menu option) is now done by copying from the empty database file ACCOUNTS.DB, rather than by doing a database restore from the database structure backup file ACCOUNTS.metadata. That should solve some problems caused by some anti-virus programs, that prevent certain writing to directories under C:\Users\Public, which is where the program's Data Directory is created.
•Changes to your Organization Name in the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window no longer require licensed users of the Standalone or Local Network versions to request an updated license key. Instead, the changed name will automatically be written into your license key file.
•Fixed a problem that caused a couple of techie, but harmless, error messages to appear for a new install of the Web Network Version. It happened only on computers that never had any other version installed on them, when you followed the start-up prompt to Register.
•In the Web Network Version, if you leave the program inactive - not doing anything in it - for 2 hours, you will be disconnected, so as to stop using up server resources and not block other users from using it. The best practice if you will not be using it for a while is to exit the program, and restart it when you wish to use it again.
•In the Web Network Version, if someone who is not an Administrator uses Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Administer All Users, rather than doing nothing (which was a bug) it offers to show you who the Administrators are. (They are the ones who can really use that menu option for adding and removing users, and changing their permissions.)
•Fixed the fact that a user of the regular versions (not Web Network Version) who enters the program with a Read Only Password could see and use the Maintenance ⇒ Change Password sub-menu options.
•Any action in the program that needs Internet access now first checks that you are connected to the Internet, and if not, gives you a chance to connect and try again.
•Added a small section on getting Yahoo email accounts configured for successful email sending in the Email Sending Configuration help page.
•The installation program is now digitally signed with what is called an "Extended Validation Code Signing Certificate", which may help prevent things like Microsoft's SmartScreen Filter or Windows Defender from incorrectly objecting to downloads - which have nothing wrong with them.
•Changed both Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Balance Sheet and Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Balance Sheet Comparison to omit rows for hidden accounts with zero balances. (For the Balance Sheet Comparison, and account is only omitted if it is hidden and has a zero balance at both dates.)
•Changed Backup/Restore ⇒ Backup Database so that if you choose to back up to a USB memory key, it does the backup directly to there in one step, as long as there seems to be sufficient space on the USB. Previously it always first did the backup to the Backup subdirectory of the program's Data Directory, then copied it from there to the USB.
•For the Web Network Version, when there has never been a local database on the same computer from another version of ACCOUNTS, fixed a minor problem with the registration window.
•For the versions other than the Web Network Version, the submenu Maintenance ⇒ Change Password had somehow disappeared. It has been put back.
•The File ⇒ Open Database window now opens highlighting your current database. Also, when using that window in the Web Network Version, it no longer prompts you to log in again after opening that window, which was not needed.
•Fixed a problem with registrations done within the program, which weren't always working properly when they were forwarded to the website. Also removed a step from this process, so you no longer have to also click Submit on a web page to complete the registration, when it is started within the program.
•Fixed a bug in the Web Network Version, when it was opened by DONATION to import a Bank Deposit transaction (or opened by double-clicking on a transaction import file), it would crash with a message about a "null object reference".
•In the Web Network Version, any of the following changes will now invisibly send an email to us, to make sure we keep our contact information for your organization up to date: Changing the Organization Name in Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info, changing your name or login email address in Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Edit Your Login, or any additions or deletions of users or changes of user access levels in Maintenance ⇒ User Administration ⇒ Administer All Users.
•There's a new option in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window: "Don't prompt before open Register Splits window with Ctrl+S". If that is checked, you are no longer asked whether to open that window when you press Ctrl+S in the Register window, to open the Splits window.
•Fixed a problem when installing and registering a new Web Network Version, when you already had a database from another version on the same computer: the Unique ID for your database that got sent to Software4Nonprofits in your registration was not the correct one.
•Fixed a bug introduced by release 2.01: New users in the USA choosing a sample database were getting errors loading that sample, preventing the load of the Chart of Accounts from completing.
•Improved the management of connections to the server database in the Web Network Version.
•Changed the wording of version numbers, like this 2.01c, to "Release #2.01c", to avoid confusion with how we use the same word "version" for the named versions of the program - Lite, Standalone, Local Network and Web Network Versions.
•Fixed a couple of things about Custom Reports: having a non-empty Heading (and not just spaces) is now always required, and stopped a program crash when trying to run reports that were somehow saved without a Heading for a row, which should not have been possible.
•Removed some erroneous references to "DONATION" that should have said "ACCOUNTS", on some Help pages.
•For users of the Web Network Version, if a Program Entry Password had been set in a previous version, don't still prompt for it after doing the Web Network Version login.
•Added a new version of ACCOUNTS, the Web Network Version, that is still installed on your Windows computer but has its database on a Software4Nonprofits server. See Multiple User Options for the pros and cons of using this version.
•The program is now using a newer version of the Firebird database software. This means that if you are sharing the same database between multiple users, all of the computers running ACCOUNTS must be upgraded. Otherwise, when you transfer a database from a program running the new versions of ACCOUNTS and Firebird to one running the older versions of both, the database will not be able to be restored.
•Fixed a weird bug where deleting multiple rows from the splits window for a transaction in a register, then using the Adjust Total button and saving the change, can leave you with an unbalanced transaction, because one or more of the deleted rows don't actually end up deleted. (This is the very first time anyone has ever found a way to create an unbalanced transaction in ACCOUNTS!)
•Fixed a bug, where the program somehow allowed at least one user to have Income or Expense accounts that were not associated with a Fund account, which caused their Balance Sheet to appear to be unbalanced. Now on start-up of this version, any such problem accounts are fixed, by associating them with the General Fund, and you are given a message telling you how to review those changes. In addition, all windows where you can edit accounts now force you to have a Fund selected for each Income or Expense account.
•Added the menu option Database ⇒ Validate Transactions which tells you whether you have any unbalanced transactions. Renamed Database ⇒ Validate to Database ⇒ Validate Database to better distinguish those two menu options.
•Added Reports ⇒ Administrative ⇒ Unbalanced Transactions to actually display any such unbalanced transactions so you can find them and fix them.
•All reports that show a column for budget amounts have now been adjusted to divide the budget amount by appropriate fractions of 12 if the report is for some number of full months. Previously the fraction used of the budget was always an exact count of days, divided by 365.
•Renamed the existing Network Versions of ACCOUNTS to be called the "Local Network Versions", to more clearly distinguish them from the new Web Network Version.
•Saving reports to PDF now usually uses a new facility for doing that which is built into PowerBuilder, the program we use to build ACCOUNTS, rather than the 3rd party PDF printer novaPDF that is included with ACCOUNTS.
•Changed the validation of email addresses you enter in the program to allow for the final part after the last period to be up to 18 characters long (the previous limit was 8).
•Added Reports ⇒ Administrative ⇒ User Login History, which shows all dates and times that any user logged on or off of the program, in descending date order (latest first), for any range of dates.
•Fixed a weakness where Maintenance ⇒ Entity Names would allow you to save one of its fields as just one or more spaces, instead of an actual name.
•Fixed a bug: drop-down lists of accounts, for instance in the Register or Register Splits window, could include hidden accounts when they should not have done so.
•Fixed potential problem data in Memorized Reports contents, that could allow your database to be backed up, but not restored, with the new version of the Firebird database software.
•Changed the installation program to automatically fix problems that a few users were having, where for some reason it could not overwrite files in the program's installation directory, so the install failed.
Version 2.00 (August 25, 2017):
•This version uses a newer version of PowerBuilder, the program we use to create ACCOUNTS, and as such we are giving this release a new main version number (2.00).
Version 1.42 (June 29, 2017):
•Added the Reports ⇒ Custom Reports menu option, which allows you to create custom reports with up to 4 columns, each for their own range of dates. Each column can be Income and Expenses, Budget, or a Difference between two previous columns. This now allows the creation of various reports that users have asked us for over the years that were not included as built-in reports, and that we weren't sure would be of interest to sufficient users to be added.
•Added a quick link for Memorized Reports to the bottom-right section of the Common Actions area on the program's main window.
•Added both Custom Reports and a section listing all of your Memorized Reports at the end of the list in the Report Browser.
•Memorized Reports can now have optional Descriptions added to them, in addition to their name. The Descriptions can be added when you are memorizing them, or on the Memorized Reports window itself.
•Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Government Form Amounts now defaults the dates to your fiscal year start and end, if they are different from the calendar year. It also has a new option to omit $0 lines.
•In the Reports ⇒ Memorized Reports window, after running a report, and closing the window(s) doing that took you to, you return to the Memorized Reports window. (Those other windows can be the main Reports window, the SQL Select window, or the Custom Reports window.) Fixed a weakness where the information about the list of reports in the Memorized Reports window is not updated on that return. That could be necessary if you made changes and re-memorized the report in one of the windows you were taken to. Without this fix, re-running the same memorized report immediately would ignore those changes. Also, any new memorized reports with new names would not have appeared on the list in this window when you returned to it.
•Fixed a bug where if you added a Filter to any of Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement by Months, Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement by Quarters, Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Income Statement by Months, or Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Income Statement by Quarters, the filter expression wouldn't get displayed on the report. (In almost all other reports, that does happen.)
Version 1.41 (March 23, 2017):
•Added Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Income Statement by Months and Income Statement by Quarters, that are like the same-named Reports ⇒ Summary reports, except split out by fund, with a summary section showing the change in fund balances for the entire reporting period. See here for details.
•Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement by Months and Income Statement by Quarters both now also prompt for an "Include" setting to determine the levels of accounts and sub-accounts to be included in the report.
•Changed the messages that come up if you try to backup or restore using a UNC path (such as \\computername\path\...). Previously that never (or at least almost never) worked, but you got a techie error message from the Firebird database software. Now you get a clearer message, earlier, directly from the program.
•Corrected a couple of places in this Help file where it said that Journal Entries was on the Maintenance menu - it is on the Actions menu. You can also get to it via the Journal Entries quick link on the main window.
•When saving reports to files with the Save As button, there is now an option to open reports saved as HTML in Excel, in addition to opening them in your default web browser. However, that is likely to come out worse in most cases than if you save them directly as Excel.
•Reorganized the Tools ⇒ Register Online window, splitting the fields up into groups for Organization Information, Contact Person, and Other Comments.
Version 1.40 (February 23, 2017):
•Added Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement General Comparison, which lists your income/revenue and expenses, consolidated across all funds, for one specified range of dates, and a second specified range of dates.
Version 1.39c (January 21, 2017):
•Sometimes the Tools ⇒ Fix novaPDF Problems menu option would not succeed because ACCOUNTS was running while the fix program was running. Now you are prompted to allow ACCOUNTS to exit prior to running the fix.
Version 1.39b (December 28, 2016):
•Fixed a crash in the program if trying to memorize a transaction with a name that is over 40 characters long.
•Fixed a crash in the Maintenance ⇒ Recurring Transactions window if you try to delete the last memorized or recurring transaction displayed on that window.
Version 1.39 (October 18, 2016):
•Added Recurring Transactions, which are memorized transactions for which a schedule has been assigned (for instance, monthly) for automatic or prompted-for insertion into the database.
•When you are memorizing transactions, you are now always prompted with a suggested memorized name (which you can of course change). For transactions previously memorized with this version 1.39 or later of ACCOUNTS, that you are re-memorizing, you are prompted to save it with the same memorized transaction name. For all others, the name it prompts you with is the Payee / Description for the transaction.
•Added the Help ⇒ Search by Topic or Keyword menu option, that actually just brings up a messagebox giving you instructions for how to do that, but also has buttons that take you either to the Help file where you can use the Index for searching, or to the How to Use Help help page for further instructions.
•Changed Help ⇒ Contents and Index so that it always opens on with the Index showing, which we believe is the most commonly helpful option. Previously it would show whichever of the Contents, Index, Search or Favorites tabs that you had last been on when you used the Help file.
Version 1.38c (August 30, 2016):
•Fixed another bug in Reports ⇒ Accountant ⇒ Trial Balance (introduced for at least one user by the fix in version 1.38) that for some dates and combinations of prior transactions could cause balances for fund accounts to be missing, and thus the whole report to not be balanced. (This only occurred if there had never been any transactions that directly affected that fund account at all, including no opening balance, but there were transactions on linked income or expense accounts.)
•In the Database ⇒ SQL Select window, more types of SQL statements (beyond the normal SELECT statement) are now allowed, with the provision of a SQL updating password from Software4Nonprofits, than were previously allowed. This will allow our support people to fix certain types of rare problems in users' databases without having to have those databases sent to us by email backup, fixed here, and sent back for restoring.
Version 1.38b (August 23, 2016):
•Added a Help topic with instructions on Deleting Databases.
•When you are installing a license key or evaluation extension key, the program now removes unexpected characters (which might be invisible!) from the lines before doing anything else, to correct unusual errors in the copy and paste process of putting the key into that window.
•Made some improvements to the Help topics on Handling Sales Taxes and Maintaining Sales Tax Codes, for clarity.
Version 1.38 (August 18, 2016):
•There's a new option on the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window, Drop down Account fields on entry to them, which determines whether that happens. (Previously it always happened.)
•In all windows that show transaction splits (Journal Entries, Register Splits, Write Cheques, Enter Deposits, Enter Bills, and Credit Card Charges) there is now better handling of rows with an Account selected but no amount(s) on that row. Also added the ability to right-click on a row and pick Delete Row from a popup menu, to clear that up.
•Added a new Database ⇒ Delete Old Data menu option, which deletes most transactions prior to a given fiscal year-end date (at least 2 full years in the past) and creates a new "rollup" Opening Balances transaction so that the balances at that date are the same as they were before this action.
•Corrected a bug in Reports ⇒ Accountant ⇒ Trial Balance that for some dates and combinations of prior transactions could cause balances for fund accounts to be wrong, and thus the whole report to not be balanced.
•There is a new Tools ⇒ Fix novaPDF Problems menu option, which downloads and runs a program from our website to uninstall and reinstall the novaPDF PDF printer, to fix problems that sometimes come up (for instance if you uninstall the printer driver, or delete some of its files). The program is also using a newer version of novaPDF.
•When you are installing a license key or evaluation extension key, the program now checks the lengths of the lines before doing anything else, and doesn't proceed if they are not the expected length, to watch for unusual errors in the copy and paste process of putting the key into that window.
Version 1.37b (May 26, 2016):
•Fixed a bug: The new option on the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window that determines whether the account names for the split accounts are included on the printed cheques, or only the memos and amounts, was not working - the account names were printed however you set that option.
Version 1.37 (May 25, 2016):
•On the main window, added a Current Balance column to the accounts list on the right-hand side, showing the balance in each displayed account as of the current date.
•Printed cheques now print the splits for the transaction on the voucher parts (the 2nd and 3rd sections of the cheque page). There is a new option on the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window that determines whether the account names for the split accounts are included with that, or only the memos and amounts.
•Fixed a bug where blank pages could be printed between cheques (or a blank page after a single cheque).
•Fixed a weird but obscure bug: If you entered a cheque through the Write Cheques window or the Register, and selected a previously entered Vendor as the Payee, then changed that to a Payee that isn't a Vendor (whether it's on the drop-down list or a new one), then when you printed that cheque, it would show the name of the Vendor as the payee on the printed cheque! This would also happen if you saved the cheque with the Payee being a Vendor, then subsequently edited it in the Register and changed the Payee to a non-vendor, and tried to print the cheque. Now that doesn't happen - it correctly shows the new Payee on the cheque.
•Fixed a bug that could allow the database to store data thinking that certain bill payments had paid $0 on one or more bills, which doesn't make sense. Such $0 payments could then not allow you to delete that bill if that payment was the only payment on it. All such existing $0 payments are removed when you first start this version.
•Removed a harmless message that should not have been there when returning from displaying the report showing your Unique ID for Internet Backups, which is displayed after you click the Setup button in the Backup/Restore ⇒ Backup Frequency and Options window, that said "Cannot activate the program's main window."
Version 1.36c (March 22, 2016):
•If you enter an incorrect password in the program (such as a Program Entry password), the message you get now includes the Organization Name from the database you are trying to access. That can be helpful if you have multiple databases, and might be putting in a password for the wrong one. It's also helpful if you forget your password and we have to give you a temporary one to get in, because it is based on the exact Organization Name, which you can then tell us.
•Fixed a bug introduced by version 1.36, if you are trying to install an evaluation extension: the program exits, after giving a message "Internal error: licensing object not passed when opening w_new_eval_date".
Version 1.36b (March 18, 2016):
•Fixed a bug introduced by version 1.36, where if you exported a Bank Deposit file from the DONATION program and allowed it to automatically launch ACCOUNTS to import that file, the program crashed with a techie error message about "Error at line 8 of uf_post_getfocus event of u_dw". (This would also happen if you double-clicked such a Bank Deposit export file, to import it into ACCOUNTS when ACCOUNTS wasn't running.)
Version 1.36 (March 15, 2016):
•Significantly sped up the loading of the Register window for accounts with a lot of transactions in them (up to 10 times faster).
•Users have been having trouble configuring email sending with Gmail in the Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration window. There are now two different solutions available in the program for that. Details are in the Help page Gmail Configuration.
•In the first Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration window, made the figuring out of the settings from an account in Microsoft Outlook work for newer versions of Outlook (Office 2016 and 2015).
•For users of the Network Versions of ACCOUNTS, enhanced the window displayed by the Tools ⇒ Network Client Information menu option in the Local Network Server version, to add buttons for Print, Open in Word, and Help.
•Made some improvements to the messaging for the unusual cases where there is something wrong with the program's licensing file, to allow you to better understand what is wrong and what to do about it. If it is necessary to re-download and install the program to fix such problems, the program will give you an option to go to the DOWNLOAD page on the website to do that.
•Improved the Help topic Restoring Backups to explain what to do if the OrganizationName part of a database backup you want to restore doesn't match the current database's filename (the File Name field in the Maintenance ⇒ Organization Info window in the program).
•Removed a harmless message that should not have been there when returning from displaying a Memorized Report, that said "Cannot activate the program's main window."
•The program now comes with a newer composite version of the 3rd-party controls that used to be separated, for sending emails (Chilkat Mail), for communication with websites (Chilkat Http) and for extracting files from compressed files (Chilkat Zip).
•Added some improvements to how the program figures out how to launch Microsoft Excel, for some users where those Microsoft programs were present on the system but not being found by ACCOUNTS.
•Some aspects of the program code have been significantly re-organized to allow us to share more code between this program and our DONATION program.
Version 1.35h (January 3, 2016):
•Fixed a problem that caused the program to hang when trying to import a chart of accounts from Simply Accounting / Sage 50 Canada, when you first create a new database.
Version 1.35g (December 29, 2015):
•Made some small improvements to the very important Help topic Accounting Concepts and its sub-section Funds and Fund Accounting, and to a few other Help pages.
•Removed the menu option Help ⇒ Support Forum on the Web. We have discontinued the use of the Support Forum because so few people were using it. Please just contact us directly if you need support.
•Added comments at various places in this Help file explaining that you should not try to move your database to a 3rd-party cloud storage location like Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive etc.
Version 1.35f (November 19, 2015):
•Fixed a bug: for some users, the cheque amount in numbers on cheques printed with the program could be wrong, with the currency symbol (e.g. dollar sign) missing, and no decimal places (e.g. for cents).
•Changed Tools ⇒ Register Online, and the Register page on the website, so that the field for the organization's website address allows up to 70 characters (previously 50).
Version 1.35e (November 6, 2015):
•Correctly fixed the bug that version 1.35d below claimed to fix, but didn't!
Version 1.35d (October 25, 2015):
•Fixed a bug - if you were registering for the first time with Tools ⇒ Register Online, and you hadn't previously set up an email address with Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration, the email address field would be both empty and uneditable, and you would not be able to submit the registration because the program would ask you to enter an email address!
Version 1.35c (October 21, 2015):
•Fixed a bug where if you try to install an expired license key, the error message you get states an incorrect date as being the expiry date of that license key.
Version 1.35b (October 19, 2015):
•Updated several Help topics to explain how to delete a split row in a transaction entry window (e.g. the Register Splits, Writing Cheques, Enter Deposits, Credit Card Charges, or Enter Bills windows) that was entered in error, by clearing all fields on that row. (It was already explained in the Help topic for entering Journal Entries.)
•Fixed a very unusual potential problem where in the Database ⇒ SQL Select window, if you are given a password by Software4Nonprofits to allow you to do some form of data updating in that window, that password could fail to work because it had an unprintable character in it.
Version 1.35 (September 21, 2015):
•Renamed the Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ One Account Details and Balances report to be just called One Account Details, because when it is run on Income or Expense accounts, it no longer shows the starting and ending balances (totals over all time the program has been used) because those figures don't really make sense. The starting and ending balances are still there when you run the report for Asset, Liability or Fund accounts.
•Similarly, Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ One Account with Running Balances is still called that, but no longer shows a starting balance for Income or Expense accounts, and the running balance just starts at $0 for such accounts.
•In both of those reports, added a note in the footer of the report, when running them for a Fund account, explaining that the report only includes explicit transactions in the report and the balances, and excludes changes to the implicit fund balance made by linked Income and Expense accounts. If you want those to be included, use Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ One Fund Details and Balances instead.
•Fixed a problem where certain complex numeric expressions (that aren't for currency amounts) get formatted as currency when they shouldn't, in the Database ⇒ SQL Select menu option.
•Improved the clarity of messages you can receive if you run a Network Version of ACCOUNTS but only have a license key for the Standalone version. Previously those messages referred to the fact that you were using the Firebird Server, which most users wouldn't understand - now it just refers to the Network Version of the program.
Version 1.34b (June 18, 2015):
•Made a fix in the installation program so it will work on the upcoming Microsoft Windows version 10.
•Made a fix related to the change about reference numbers made in version 1.34: now you do not get any confirmation questions in either the Register window (for payments) or the Write Cheques window, if you leave both the transaction Type and Number fields blank. We assume you know what you are doing in that case.
•All backup filenames now have a time component as well as a date component, such as OrganizationName-YYYY-MM-DD.HH.MM.SS.S4ABackup, where YYYY-MM-DD is the date the backup was made, and HH.MM.SS is the time.
•The Write Cheques window now allows the entry of non-numeric reference numbers, which might come up when entering payments with transaction types other than "CHEQUE" or "CHECK". The field for entering that number has been changed from saying "Cheque #" or "Check #" to saying "Chq / Ref #" or "Chk / Ref #".
•Transaction Types in both the Register and Write Cheques windows are now forced to be upper case.
•Fixed a weakness in the Pay Bills window: you couldn't use it to "pay" a bill for $0, composed of a bill and a credit note (a bill with a negative amount) for the same dollar amounts, or any other combination adding up to $0.
•Both Reports ⇒ Vendors and Bills ⇒ Overdue Bills Aging Summary and All Bills Aging Summary omitted to add in any credit notes (ones with negative amounts) to the displayed totals. They are now included.
•Added a menu option Maintenance ⇒ Change Password ⇒ Read Only Password, that allows you to set a Read Only Password. Entering ACCOUNTS with that password means you can view data and reports, but not enter transactions or change any data.
•Changed a number of data entry windows to prompt about saving the work if you have made changes, not saved those changes, and then close the window by using the "X" at the top right corner or Alt+F4 or a Close button. (A Cancel button will always allow you to abandon unsaved changes without prompting.)
•When you are reconciling an account, added a validation in the initial Reconciliation Summary screen so you can't enter a Statement Ending Date earlier than the date of the latest reconciliation on the account, if any. (You already couldn't actually run a reconciliation prior to that date, but you didn't get a message about that until you clicked the Reconcile button to go on to the Reconciliation Details window.)
•Fixed some problems that can happen in the installation program if you are installing into a non-standard location for the program files, or re-installing to one location when a prior install went to a different location.
•Added a section on "Creating your own Import Files" (which we do not recommend!) to the Help page on Importing Transactions. Also allowed more transaction type values when importing transactions, and allowed the import to be a CSV file (in addition to the currently allowed tab separated text file format).
•Improved the messages you receive if the program tries to send an email and is unsuccessful, to be clearer and more helpful about what the problem likely is, and how to fix it. (This applies whether you are doing so from the Test button in the Maintenance ⇒ Email Sending Configuration window, or trying to actually email a report or database backup.)
•Fixed an inconsistency between the program itself and the installation program about how they find the program's Data Directory - a couple of users were finding that the different methods used, which we thought always gave the same answer, did not do so.
•Improved the wording in the Evaluation and Licensing window (accessed via Tools ⇒ Request or Install License Key) when you are already licensed. If it tells you that your eligibility for support and upgrades has expired, and you need to pay to renew that, it makes it clear that this is "according to your most recently installed license key", which may or may not be correct. (You might have paid more recently, but just not requested, received and installed an updated license key yet.)
•Added some content to the Help page on the Data Directory, to avoid possible confusions about the Data Directory itself versus its Data subdirectory, and about the "Documents" versus "Public Documents" subdirectory under C:\Users\Public in recent versions of Windows.
•Hopefully fixed a problem that occurred very occasionally (we believe on 64-bit computers) when the installation program tried to install the novaPDF PDF printer, and it would not install, giving the message "Error 1 installing novaPDF".
•In both the Bill List and Bill Payment List windows, added checkboxes for "Show only 1 year back".
•In the Bill Payment List window, changed it so that after any changes to the Vendor drop-down or that new checkbox, it scrolls to show the latest bill payment (the bottom of the list).
•Fixed a bug: when printing cheques for vendors in the Vendor List that have an apostrophe (single quote) or double quote in their name, their address would not be printed on the cheque. Note: This fix may will probably not work for previously existing transactions with quotes in the vendor name, unless you edit those transactions before you try to print them, first changing the Payee to anything else, moving out of that field, then going back and changing it back to the desired Payee.
•Fixed a bug introduced by version 1.30, where in some cases when it went to get the next cheque number it would give an error message and show number 1.
•Made some improvements to the Help page Move the Program from One Computer to Another, relevant to the changes in version 1.28.
•Changed the way the program calculates the next available cheque number (used in the Register, Write Cheques and Pay Bills windows). Now it suggests the number after the cheque number that was most recently entered for that bank account (not the one with the most recent transaction date - which is the date you enter). Also added a new Help page explaining Getting the Next Cheque Number.
•Fixed a bug in Importing Transactions, which is most commonly done for bank deposits from the DONATION program, where it would give error messages and not do the import if any of the included accounts had either an apostrophe (single quote) or a double quote in their names.
•In the Reports ⇒ Memorized Reports window, added a Delete button to delete reports that are no longer needed.
Made several changes to the Reconciliation Summary window:
•Added a Delete Latest button to allow you to completely remove the latest reconciliation done on that account, if it was done in error (for instance, for the wrong date).
•Added a test that the selected Statement Ending Date is no earlier than the Statement Ending Date of the latest reconciliation done on that account, because it does not make sense to do them out of order.
•Added a warning, if the Statement Ending Date is more than one calendar month after the Statement Ending Date of the latest reconciliation done on that account, to confirm you really want to do that. (Normally you would do the reconciliations one month at a time, but the program does allow you to do multiple months at once.)
•Added a new Maintenance ⇒ Funds for Accounts menu option (also available from a new Funds button on the Chart of Accounts window). It allows you to set the funds associated with each income and expense account, all on one window. (Previously that could only be done one income or expense account at a time, on the editing window from the Chart of Accounts.)
•Fixed a bug in the addition of storing memorized reports in the database, rather than in separate files on your hard drive, in version 1.28. That worked for new installations of ACCOUNTS, but when existing installations were updated, if you had any existing memorized reports you would get a technical error message about not being able to save them in the database.
•There appears to be a bug in the Quicken exporting of accounts, for importing into an initial chart of accounts into ACCOUNTS, where the types shown for some accounts consist of garbage characters. Previously that would stop the import - now those accounts are imported (arbitrarily) as Bank accounts, and you can fix them after the import. You are shown a file of problems in the import that includes a note about each such account.
•Corrected broken links to the four helpful blog posts explaining fund accounting from the competitor company IconCMO, in the Funds and Fund Accounting section of the Accounting Concepts help page.
•Memorized reports are now stored in the database, rather than in separate files on your hard drive, so they no longer have to be backed up and restored separately. The first time this version (or any subsequent version) is run when you have previously been using version 1.27 or earlier, all memorized reports are picked up from your hard drive and inserted into the database. If you are using ACCOUNTS on multiple computers, this is done on each computer, though only newer reports are updated when a given report is already present in the database.
•The sample charts of accounts for Canada Charity and Canada Church have had their government form lines for the T3010 form updated to include the section or schedule number as part of the form line, in the form (for instance) "SD 1234" for lines in Section D or "S6 1234" for lines in Schedule 6. Lines for both Section D and Schedule 6 (only one of which is filled in by each organization, depending on its size) are included, and a new comment has been added to Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Government Form Amounts, when it is run for the T3010, pointing out that only one of those groups should be used.
•The installation program for the Network Client version now has clearer instructions, and clear error messages for problems, on the screen for specifying the computer name that the Network Server version is running on, and the path where the database files are stored.
•Occasionally the program fails to start because a user has moved either the program's data directory or the "Cooperstock Software" directory above it. Now the program will give a clearer error message about this problem, with a suggestion of how to fix it.
•In all windows where you can enter a list of splits for a transaction (like the Register Splits window, Write Cheques, Enter Deposits, Journal Entries etc.) make the Account field a bit wider to show more of long account names.
•In the Edit Bill window, if you make a change to the Total Bill Amount and tab or click out of the field, in cases where you were using Sales Tax Codes and there was only one expense account, it would automatically re-calculate the splits for you when you tabbed out of the field. However, if you clicked either Save button without first moving out of the field, it would not do that, and would give you an unneeded error message about the splits not adding up to the total. That has been fixed.
•Also in the Edit Bill window, when you are editing a bill that already has a partial or total bill payment on it, you are now given a warning about that fact when you enter the window, pointing out that you need to be cautious about changing the Total Bill Amount. And if you do change that amount, in most cases (except where it was a partial payment before, and is still a partial payment after the change) it will ask you to confirm the change when you click either Save button, explaining what the effect of your change was.
•Changed the installation programs to give a message on their startup screens, saying that you may need to temporarily stop your anti-virus or security programs if you get a message about "Sharing Violation" during the install, which a few users were having.
•Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement, Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement Yr/Yr Comparison, Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Balance Sheet, Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Balance Sheet Comparison, Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison, Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Income Statement, Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Budget Comparison and Reports ⇒ Listing ⇒ Budget now all prompt for an "Include" setting to determine the levels of accounts and sub-accounts to be included in the report.
•Reports created with the Database ⇒ SQL Select menu option now do a better job of making the columns only as wide as they need to be to hold the longest retrieved data, and leaving spaces between columns. This fixes problems both where some data could be cut off because columns were too narrow, and reports were unnecessarily wide because columns were too wide.
•In all windows where you can enter a list of splits for a transaction (like the Register Splits window, Write Cheques, Enter Deposits, Journal Entries etc.) made the drop-down area for the accounts wider, to show long account names in their entirety rather than in some cases cutting them off.
•Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ One Account with Running Balances was incorrectly showing the ending balance as the starting balance, and then adding up running balances from there. That has been fixed, so the starting balance is correct.
•This version was created with a newer version of PowerBuilder, the program used to create ACCOUNTS.
•Fixed a support problem, where if the program cannot find one of its 3rd party components (ChilkatHttp, ChilkatMail, or wodCrypt), a re-install of the full version did not always fix them, and further steps were required to fix the problem.
•Fixed a problem in the installation program, for re-installs, where if you need to let it delete an expired license key file (a very unusual situation) that gives an error message and the whole install ends up failing to upgrade.
•Reports ⇒ Vendors and Bills ⇒ All Bills Aging Summary was not obeying the setting for "Show Cents in Reports" in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window. In some cases it would show no cents, and could also in some cases in some fields show 4 decimal places. That has been corrected.
•Reports ⇒ Accountant ⇒ Audit Trail now shows the user for each transaction as being the logged-in Windows user, rather than always "Admin", for all transactions entered after you upgrade to this version.
•Fixed a bug when editing accounts: A hidden account that was a sub-account of another hidden account could not be edited, because its hidden parent account was not displayed on the "Of parent account" drop-down list. That drop-down list now includes hidden accounts, if the "Hidden" checkbox on the window is checked.
•Added a new table, USER_LOG, to the database, which tracks each user of the program (based on the Windows username they logged onto their computer with). It records the time they logged on (started) and logged off (exited) the program. You can retrieve data from it with queries in the Database ⇒ SQL Select window such as "SELECT * from USER_LOG where ACTION_DATE between '2014-01-1' and '2014-01-31 23:59:59'", to see all of the activity in January 2014.
•On Register windows, the Splits and Delete buttons now only appear on the currently selected row (if they are available for that row at all), rather than all rows for which they are available. This gives a less cluttered appearance.
•In the Print Cheques window, there is a new Adjustments button, that opens up an area that allows you to adjust the positioning of the various elements printed on the cheque, in case the cheques are not quite lining up properly on your cheque forms. (The only forms that are supported, however, are still 3-part voucher cheques with the cheque on top, designed for use in QuickBooks.)
•Added a new report, Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ One Account with Running Balances, which lists detailed transactions with running balances for one account over a range of dates.
•Added a new report, Reports ⇒ Vendors and Bills ⇒ Vendor List, which just lists each vendor's name, account number and name for cheques.
•In the Network versions, fixed a problem where if the program loses its connection to the database for some reason, it could get a large pile of error messages, one on top of another, if the user wasn't at their computer at the time, and then be hard to close. Also, it now gives an option to reconnect to the database.
•Fixed a bug in Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Government Form Amounts that could cause the dollar figures for some accounts to be missing or $0, when they should have been actual non-zero amounts.
•When you used the Tools ⇒ Check for Updates menu option, if for some reason the download of the upgrade file failed, the "Please Wait" window for the download would remain up after an error message, leading you to think that the download was hanging, and with no obvious way to get out of it. Now that window closes after such an error.
•Fixed a problem in the installation programs that caused exporting to formatted Excel in the Save As window when viewing reports to give an error message and fail.
•A lot of strange warning messages (one or two per line of the report!) would come up if you ran Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Government Form Amounts, and then clicked Save As, and did the save to Excel, with the option "Formatted Data for Display" selected. That has been fixed.
•When you used the Tools ⇒ Check for Updates menu option, many users were finding that it failed, with an incorrect message saying that they did not seem to be connected to the Internet. That is fixed by this version, however, to get this version successfully, you have to download it from the DOWNLOAD page on the website, at https://software4nonprofits.com/download-all/, since Check for Updates isn't working in your current version!
•Fixed a bug in the window for installing a new license key that in some cases would accept an out-of-date key and indicate it was valid.
•Prevented installation of the program in a path whose name contains a single quote character, because for some reason that prevents the program from starting properly
•Fixed a minor problem, where the progress bar in the window showing an Internet Backup uploading never changed.
•Switched to using a new version of the program that creates the installation programs, which introduces some new capabilities, but also drops support for installing ACCOUNTS on the 13-year-old version of Windows called Windows 2000.
•Fixed a bug when installing the Network Client version of the program, where if the Database Directory on the Network Server version's computer has been changed from its standard location, you may get a message about that directory not existing on the Network Client computer, and be unable to complete the install. (The database directory doesn't have to exist on the Network Client computer!)
•Changed the installation program, so that a tile for ACCOUNTS shows up on the Windows 8 "All Apps" area, and ACCOUNTS can be searched for with the Windows 8 feature for searching for applications. For earlier versions of Windows, ACCOUNTS now also shows up under Start Menu ⇒ Programs ⇒ Software4Nonprofits, as well as the Windows Desktop (where it always showed up).
•In Reports ⇒ Listing ⇒ Revenue and Expense Accounts by Fund, added the account number of the fund to the header with the name of the fund, and changed to always show account numbers (regardless of the setting about that in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window).
•In Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ Transaction by Account, made the Memo field much wider, so long memo values aren't as likely to be cut off.
•Added a new feature about the Memo field in the Register, Write Cheques, Enter Deposits, Enter Bills and Credit Card Charges windows. Now, when you save those transactions, if the overall Memo you entered for the transaction is filled in, any individual split lines' Memo fields that have been left blank will have the transaction's Memo copied into them. Split lines' Memo fields that you filled in specifically will not be overwritten. Previously, the Memo was actually only applied to the transaction's main account's split line (such as the register account, the bank account used for Write Cheques, etc.).
•When this version is first run, all transactions other than Journal Entries and Opening Balances transactions are updated as if the new Memo feature in the previous point had always been in effect. I.e. non-empty memos on the first splits line of transactions are copied to empty memos on subsequent splits lines.
•Added Reports ⇒ Vendors and Bills ⇒ All Bills Aging Summary, that lists summaries by vendor of all unpaid bills, with the amounts broken out by in how many days in the future or past they are due: Future over 30 days, Future 1-30 days, Current (due today), Overdue 1 - 30, Overdue 31 - 60, Overdue 61 - 90, or Overdue over 90 days.
•Added a Tools ⇒ Run Windows Calculator menu option, that starts the built-in Calculator application from Windows.
•Added a section to the Help topic on Handling Sales Taxes about "Transactions that are only Partly Taxable", to explain what to do for them.
•In the reconciliation details report (also printable after the fact with the Reports ⇒ Banking ⇒ Prior Reconciliation menu option), allowed for more characters in the Num field (which is usually a cheque number).
•Added Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Balance Sheet Comparison, that shows the balance sheet for two specified dates (normally defaulting to the previous fiscal year-end date, and today's date), and the difference between them.
•Added protections against accidentally entering fractional cents (for example amounts like 123.456) in any of the data-entry windows. Doing so was previously allowed (because we never thought about it!), but could not be detected, because only cents were displayed in data entry windows and reports. Entering fractional cents could cause problems including a bank reconciliation saying it was out by $-0.00! Also on your first startup of this version, any previously entered fractional cents are removed, to prevent further such problems.
•Added a small section on Voiding a Cheque to the Help topic on Register Samples.
•When the register, Write Cheques or Pay Bills windows display the next available cheque number for an account (done in the register when you press the "+" key in the Number field), it used to always use one more than the highest cheque number recorded in that account, within the 13 months prior to today's date. Now, it uses one more than the latest cheque number used in that account, within the last 13 months of transactions in the account (which could end before or after today's date, depending on the entries you have made).
•Similarly, when selecting lists of previously used transactions types and descriptions, for the drop-down lists of them in various windows, it now selects them from the last 13 months of transactions in the account (back to 13 months prior to the latest transaction date in the account) rather than from the 13 months up to today's date. (This would make a difference, for instance, if you were starting by entering your transactions from two years ago.)
•When you use Print Cheques, the To Cheque # (ending cheque number to print) is now automatically initialized to be the last cheque number in the selected bank account. You can still change that, if desired.
•When importing transactions, which are most commonly bank deposit transactions exported from the DONATION program, give a more helpful error message if the same account name is erroneously used with two different account types, for example for both the bank account and an income account.
•Fixed a problem during a re-installation, if you have configured your database to be located on a USB memory key, and the memory key containing your database has not been inserted into your computer. Now it will prompt you to do that before continuing the installation.
•On the Pay Bills window, added a small Pay button between the Outstanding Amount field and the Payment Amount field. Clicking it transfers the Outstanding Amount into the Payment Amount (as long as the Payment Amount is currently zero), to save you re-typing it. Renamed the main Pay button on the window to Pay Now.
•When printing cheques, for the version where you do not check "The Payee goes above the line for the Amount in words", moved the memo on the cheque up a bit, because it could be too close to the micro-encoded account number at the bottom of the cheque.
•Fixed a bug where if you had an account with a budget, then made another account with a budget a sub-account of that first account, the budget for that first account would continue to show up on the three reports related to budgets, causing the budget totals on those reports to be incorrect. Now when you make the second account a sub-account of the first account, the budget for the first account will be moved to be the new budget for the second account, which is now the first account's sub-account.
•The same problem occurred with Government Form Lines associated with an account, when that account was changed to be a sub-account of another account that also had Government Form Lines. They are now moved from the new parent account to the new sub-account.
•Fixed an oversight where the Maintenance ⇒ Budgets window never showed account numbers, even when "Hide Account Numbers except in Chart of Accounts" was unchecked in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window.
•Fixed a weird behaviour when editing accounts from the Chart of Accounts, where if you switched between an account being a sub-account and a sub-sub-account or vice-versa, and then dropped down the list of parent accounts, the accounts in that list could be in descending order by account number, rather than the normal ascending order.
•Added a new checkbox for Don't Indent Amounts in Reports in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window. If it is checked, all amounts in reports like the Income Statement and Balance Sheet are completely aligned vertically, rather than being indented by sub-account level if is unchecked (which is the default).
•Added a drop-down arrow to show previously used values, and autocomplete functionality (you start typing, and matching values pop up) to the Type field on register windows, and the Transaction Type field on the Write Cheques window.
•Fixed a bug introduced by version 1.13, where resizable windows (including the program's main window) were always centered on your screen, rather than located where you had moved them the last time you ran the program.
•Added Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ One Fund Details and Balances, which shows all of the transaction details in all accounts affecting one selected fund balance over a specified date range, plus the starting and ending implicit balances in that fund.
•Added Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Budget Comparison, which is like Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison except that it breaks it out into one statement per fund.
•The window for entering a new bill now has Save and New and Save and Close buttons, like most other special purpose data entry windows, so that you can enter several bills in a row without exiting the window.
•When you are entering a new bill, the Bill Date is now set to the last-used transaction date from that or any other data-entry window during the current run of the program, and any date that you set as the Bill Date becomes the last-used transaction date for use in other windows.
•When you are paying a bill, or editing a prior bill payment, a Total Amount of the payment is now displayed at the bottom of the list of bills to be paid, and there is a new confirmation question to confirm you want to pay the bill for the entered total amount.
•When you are entering credit card charges, you can now enter negative amounts, which represent credits/refunds on your credit card bill.
•In any field for an account that automatically drops down its list when you enter it, pressing ESC will now pop it back up. (In most of those windows, ESC normally closes the window, and will do so again after you press ESC the first time in such a field to pop the account drop-down back up.)
•When you pop up a calendar control for a date field, previously the only way to get rid of it without making a selection was by pressing ESC. Now you can get rid of it by clicking the same popup button again, or clicking back into the date field, or in most other places on the same window.
•Fixed a bug that affected some users where you could not enter a negative Amount for a bill (representing a credit note from the vendor), because you would get a techie error message when you tried to save it. The same bug may also have caused some other strange problems in other parts of the program.
•Fixed a bug when editing an existing Bill from the Bill List window, if the Payables Account for that bill has been hidden, when the editing window was opened the Payables Account field would display "0". If you didn't change that (to select a non-hidden account), then when you tried to save it, you would get a techie error message. Now in this situation, the Payables Account field is automatically changed to show your first non-hidden Accounts Payable account from the drop-down list, so that error cannot occur.
•Fixed a bug that prevents successfully deleting a bill from the Bill List window, where it gives a message starting with "Cannot run procedure SP_DELETE_TRANSACTION".
•Fixed the fact that two totals at the bottom of Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison, and all amounts in Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Government Form Amounts, showed dollar signs (which aren't normally shown in reports) and didn't obey the "Show Cents in Reports" setting (if it was unchecked) in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window.
•Fixed a bug in Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Balance Sheet: if there were no explicit transactions in a fund account (not even an Opening Balance) prior to the "as of" date you specified for the report, but there were transactions on income or expense accounts linked to that fund account after that "as of" date, those later transactions were erroneously added to the fund balance, causing the balance sheet to be incorrect (and unbalanced). Only transactions on linked income or expense accounts up to the "as of" date should have been added into the fund balance.
•Added a Help page on Mortgage Samples and Building Fund.
•When you start the program, if there are bills that you have entered with Enter Bills that are due or overdue, you will now receive a message about that, and be given an option to immediately open the Pay Bills window to view them and perhaps pay them.
•Added an option in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window that controls whether the messages mentioned in the previous point are shown.
•When you run Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison, the program now checks that you have defined a budget for the year you are trying to run the report for, and advises you to define the budget with the Maintenance ⇒ Budgets menu option if you haven't defined it.
•Added an option when running Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ One Account Details and Balances to include or exclude the splits / counter accounts in the transaction details that it shows. (Previously it always included them.)
•When creating a new database for a new organization, in the Startup Accounts window, you are now allowed to specify that an organization in the U.S.A. is a non-profit that does submit a form 990 or 990-EZ. (Previously you had to select "No 990" if you specified that your organization was a US non-profit.)
•Added some further helpful details to the Help topic on Entering Opening Balances.
•Added a new Help page Payroll Samples, with sample payroll transactions.
•Made some changes to the program's License Agreement, and various places in both this Help file and the program's website, to clarify the following existing policies: Older versions of the program are never made available, so users whose paid support and upgrades eligibility period has expired need to pay an appropriate fee to download and re-install the current version of the program, unless they keep their own secure permanent copy of the installation program from before their upgrades eligibility period ended, which they can use instead. Also, renamed the "Full License" fee to the "Initial Purchase" fee, for clarity.
•Added Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ One Account Details and Balances, which lists all transactions affecting one selected account for a selected date range, with the details of the splits, plus starting and ending balances for that account, and a summary of the transactions in that range of dates by transaction type.
•In Reports ⇒ Fund ⇒ Income Statement, prevented a problem where using Filter multiple times (for example to select the income statement for only one fund) could make the accounts in the report show up out of order (Expenses first, then Income). Also, if account numbers are being shown (as set in Maintenance ⇒ Main Options), also show the account number for the fund in the report's header section.
•Prevented a crash if you right-click on a partial blank row in a register window, when you scroll to the bottom, if the window size is between exact numbers of rows.
•Added Reports ⇒ Listing ⇒ Annual Budget, which shows just an annual budget for a specified year, with no corresponding actual amounts.
•Fixed a minor problem where some figures in Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison were not being displayed with the correct formatting (including not obeying the "Show Cents in Reports" setting in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window).
•Added a Help page on Using the Database on a USB Memory Key (another way to handle having copies of the Standalone version of ACCOUNTS on multiple computers).
•Added better messages if the program's database cannot be found when you are starting the program (for example if it is on a USB memory key which you have not plugged in).
•Some users were getting a message "Unlicensed HTMLMessageBox" at the top of any message box from the program, because the program file that displayed the message boxes had not been updated by an upgrade when it should have been. The program now gives a message on startup if this unexpected situation is still a problem, with instructions to contact us for help resolving it.
•There is a new checkbox in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window for "Show Cents in Reports", which defaults to showing them. If you uncheck that, all reports omit the cents, and show only rounded-off full dollar amounts.
•In the register window, register splits window and Write Cheques window, zero amounts (for voided cheques) are now allowed.
•Made a fix so that if you manually copy a database file to another file with a different filename (for example to make a 2nd independent copy of a database for some reason), that does not cause a problem when opening and using the new file. (Previously that would have caused some subtle problems.)
•Improved a few things in the appearance of the new Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement by Months, and Income Statement by Quarters. Also in these reports, fixed something that caused a warning message when opening the file in Excel, if you used the Save As button and saved to a formatted Excel file.
•In reports created with Database ⇒ SQL Select, if the Grid display style was chosen and there were a large number of columns, the order of the columns in the resulting report could come out completely incorrect. That has been corrected.
•Added two new reports: Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Income Statement by Months, and Income Statement by Quarters. Each one breaks down the income and expenses by respectively month or quarter, within a specified range of dates, and also includes a Grand Total column at the end.
•Fixed a number of issues that could cause problems when Importing Accounts from Simply Accounting, with certain organizations of accounts in your Simply Accounting chart of accounts.
•Fixed a bug in Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Budget Comparison: for accounts with budgets, if there were transactions in the database that were later than the selected date range for the report, they could be included in the "Actuals" totals. Also fixed a tiny bug: the calculation of the number of days for the displayed proportional budget amount, if you weren't running the report for a full year, was one day too low. (It also ignores leap years, but that will not be fixed.)
•On the Pay Bills window, if you delete the Cheque #, you are no longer prompted to confirm that that's what you want, in the case where the selected Account is a credit card account rather than a bank account.
•Added new settings in the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window, to allow you to have the program warn you about entering transactions whose dates are too far in the past or future, or even prevent you from entering such transactions. The default, if you have not changed the settings in that window, is to warn you if a transaction is more than 31 days in the past, or the future.
•When you use the right-click menu in the register window to Copy a transaction, then when you Paste that transaction, the date field is now cleared. (That helps prevent errors where you accidentally save a pasted transaction with the same date as the one you copied, when that was not desired.) The date field is not cleared when you use Cut and then Paste.
•When you run the Government Form Amounts report, you are now first prompted for whether you would like to see the Chart of Accounts with Government Form Lines report instead, to make sure it's all correct.
•Added the hotkey Ctrl+A to bring up the Chart of Accounts window from the program's main window.
•When you are in the window for editing government form lines, added a "Flip Sign?" checkbox to deal with some unusual situations. Also, if you click the New button, now if there is only one government form defined, it is automatically selected for you in the Form field, and you are put into the Line field.
•In that same window for editing government form lines, for lines associated with a form called exactly "T2" (for incorporated Canadian non-profits), there are a number of new validation rules for the line values (which are GIFI codes), some of which will automatically check the "Flip Sign?" field for you, after giving a message explaining why.
•In Reports ⇒ Listing ⇒ Chart of Accounts with Government Form Lines, added a field for "Flip Sign?".
•Updated the sample chart of accounts for a Canadian non-profit, including adding in the connections to the T2 tax form's lines, which will apply if the non-profit is incorporated. (This will only affect new databases you create with the program after installing this version.)
•Fixed two bugs in Reports ⇒ Summary ⇒ Government Form Amounts: The amounts would likely be wrong if you were running them for dates in the past, and the page numbering at the top right was cut off.
•Added memorized transactions capabilities to the register windows, that allow you to memorize a transaction, give that a name, and then re-insert it into the same account's register window at any time in the future, selecting it by name.
•Added subtotals by payee/description to the new Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ Transactions by Payee/Description report.
•The right-click menu option Paste Transaction in the register window can now only paste onto a basically empty row at the bottom of the register. (It could previously overwrite an existing transaction, after confirmation.)
•The right-click menu options for Copy, Cut and Paste Transactions can now also work on Journal Entries displayed in the register.
•When you are printing cheques, the memo line is now filled in with "Acct #" followed by the vendor's Account Number, if this is a cheque to a vendor that has that field filled in. Otherwise, the Memo field from the transaction is used (as it was in prior versions).
•When you are paying bills, if the bill (or first bill) being paid had a Memo on it, that memo is now correctly copied to be the memo of the transaction on the Pay from Account. That means that it might be printed as a memo on the cheque for this payment, if there is no vendor Account Number, as mentioned in the previous point. (Previously, the memo from the bill was being put as the memo on the Accounts Payable account by mistake.)
•Fixed a problem where sometimes you got an error message when you tried to save a transaction pasted by the right-click menu option Paste Transaction in the register window, after using Cut Transaction.
•Fixed an oversight where the last Payment Date used in the Pay Bills window doesn't set the default transaction date for the next transaction to be entered on any other window, during the same run of the program. (That was working on all other windows that allow you to enter a transaction, except for Enter Bills, where it does not make as much sense.)
•Fixed a problem when you open a register window, the cursor is in the Number field in the blank row at the bottom, rather than in the Date field, where it should be.
•Fixed a small problem: On the Find Transactions window, there was no scroll bar on the drop-down list for the Payee / Description field.
•Fixed a bug: If you were on a register window for a Fund account, and you deleted a transaction (for example an inter-fund transfer) the Implicit Balance at the bottom of the window wasn't updated.
•Fixed an obscure bug when editing existing accounts, that would allow you to change the Type of the account in some cases where you aren't supposed to be allowed to do so, if after getting an error message about that, you change the account's sub-account level.
•Added the Database ⇒ Delete All Transactions menu option, which users could use after entering some initial fake transactions just for testing, to remove them all so that they could really start using the program.
•Added Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ Transactions by Payee/Description, that lists all transactions over a specified range of dates, broken out by the payee or other description of the transaction.
•Added a "Name for Cheques" field when editing vendor details. If that is filled in, for cheques where the payee is that vendor, that field will be printed as the payee on the cheque, rather than the regular vendor Name field which is displayed in the transaction details in the Write Cheques or register window.
•On the register window, changed the right-click menu option Splits to be named View/Edit Splits. That menu option changes to read Edit Bill or Edit Bill Payment if the current transaction is a bill or a bill payment, and those two new options can also be done by the hotkey Ctrl+E. If you choose those new options, the transaction is opened in the regular window for editing bills or bill payments respectively.
•Also on the register window, if the current transaction is a journal entry, changed the right-click menu option View as Journal Entry to read Edit Journal Entry, which can also be done with the hotkey Ctrl+E. That version opens an editable window for editing that journal entry (instead of the regular read-only one for viewing normal transactions as journal entries).
•Similarly, on the register window, if the current transaction is your Opening Balances transaction, changed the right-click menu option View as Journal Entry to read Edit Opening Balances, which can also be done with the hotkey Ctrl+E. That version opens an editable window for editing that transaction as a journal entry (instead of the regular read-only one for viewing normal transactions as journal entries).
•On the register window, made all fields of rows for journal entries or Opening Balances transactions non-editable, except for the Number field. (While the Number field is editable, if you actually change it, you will receive an error message and your change will be undone.) This makes them behave just like bill and bill payment transactions displayed on a register window.
•Some users who had been using very early beta test versions found that a database conversion done invisibly by version 1.02 or later failed, which meant they could not open the program. This version fixes that.
•Fixed a bug: When editing an existing bill, it would change the Cheque # to the next available number in the selected bank account, rather than leaving it as is.
•Improved the options for Importing Accounts from QuickBooks and Importing Accounts from Quicken on startup, to handle cases where there are duplicate account names, possibly at different account/sub-account levels, in different accounts classes (Asset / Liability / Fund / Income / Expense). Previously problems like that would prevent an import from being completed.
•There is now a warning in the register window, if you appear to be entering a cheque on a bank account, but you have entered a Deposit amount rather than a Payment amount.
•Related to the previous point, when you use Print Cheques, bank transactions that have a value in the Number field but have a Deposit amount rather than a Payment amount will never be printed, as they are not considered to actually be cheques.
•If you start a reconciliation by using the Reconcile Account menu option from the right-click menu in a register window, and the current transaction in the register was not the empty one at the end, you are now returned to the same transaction after you finish the reconciliation. (Previously it would always go back to the empty one at the end.)
•On some computers with Intel video adaptors, the feature that causes the auto-drop-down of most Account fields could cause your screen display to flip, so it was upside down! Fixed that. (If that happens in version 1.02b, press Ctrl+Alt-UpArrow, to fix it.)
•In autocomplete fields, like the Payee / Description in a register window, fixed a bug where if the current text wasn't entirely selected (highlighted), and you added a character at the end of text, it could act as if there was no current text and show the first match to the letter you just typed.
•Found some cases where the new auto-drop-down of most Account fields, and then the sort of them alphabetically if you pressed a letter, didn't always work, and fixed them.
•On the windows for entering Journal Entries or Opening Balances, and the Journal Entry List, changed the field label "Memo" to "Description".
•The various resizable windows in the program did not have the usual expected controls on the title bar, including the "X" to close the window at the top right. Those controls are now there.
•Fixed a problem in the Sales Tax Accounts window, where if you activated the New button with the Alt+N key combination rather than clicking it with the mouse, it immediately prompted you for whether you wanted to close the window.
•Some users who had been using early beta-test versions of the program, and then tried to use the Actions ⇒ Opening Balances menu option, could receive an unhelpful error message like "Unable to retrieve transaction" and be unable to continue with that option. That has been fixed.
•Fixed a problem where the Database ⇒ Export Chart of Accounts menu option was broken, giving an error message "Unexpected subtype ID 0: Cancelling export."
•You can now search for and find transactions in ACCOUNTS, from two places - the right-click menu or Ctrl+F on register windows, or the File ⇒ Find Transactions menu option or Ctrl+F on the main window. Finding can be on any or all of the Payee / Description, Number (for example cheque or journal entry number), Memo, and Amount.
•Changed some of the behaviour of most fields for selecting an account (unless there are usually only a few options, like in the top part of the Write Cheques, Enter Deposits, Credit Card Charges or Enter Bills windows). First, the fields now drop down their lists automatically, as soon as you Tab or click into them. Second, if you press a letter, it immediately goes to the first account that starts with that letter (as it did before) but it also re-sorts the list in alphabetical order, to make it easier to see and select other accounts that start with that letter. If you press Backspace after that, or Tab out of the field, the list is returned to chart of accounts order.
•In the Enter Deposits window, when the Account drop-down is first displayed for an Account field that current has no value in it, the list is scrolled to show the first Income account for you.
•In the Write Cheques, Credit Card Charges and Enter Bills windows, when the Account drop-down is first displayed for an Account field that current has no value in it, the list is scrolled to show the first Expense account for you.
•Made the list of accounts on the main window obey the "Hide Account Numbers except in Chart of Accounts" setting on the Maintenance ⇒ Main Options window. Previously account numbers were always shown there.
•Fixed a problem in the Trial Balance report where some rows could show a real value for the Debit or Credit, with $0.00 showing in the other one of those two fields (when it should have been blank). It could also unnecessarily show rows for Fund/Equity accounts that had zero balances (with no transactions).
•Fixed problems on the Income Statement, Income Statement Yr/Yr Comparison, Balance Sheet, Budget Comparison, Fund Income Statement and Trial Balance reports. In some cases account names with no dollar amounts were displayed, that should not have been there. And in some cases parent accounts of sub-accounts that had dollar amounts, that should have been shown as a heading, were omitted. (The actual data that was there, that had dollar amounts, was both correct and complete, and the totals were correct.)
•Fixed a few small typos in account names in the sample charts of accounts. (This will only be corrected in new databases / installations using those samples, not charts of accounts in databases that have already been created.)
•Fix a problem in the reconciliation summary window, where if changing the Statement Ending Date should cause the Opening Balance to be recalculated, that didn't happen if you changed it with the popup calendar control. (It only happened if you typed in the new date and Tabbed out of the field.)
•Fixed a problem in the reconciliation details window, where if your Ending Balance entered on the summary window was a negative number, when you go to click Finish, you get a techie error message and you cannot save the reconciliation.
•Created a new Reports ⇒ Details sub-menu, and moved Reports ⇒ Accountant ⇒ Transaction Details to there (renamed to Transactions by Date).
•Added Reports ⇒ Details ⇒ Transactions by Account, which groups and subtotals the transaction details by account.
•Changed the Print Cheques option so that it will only print cheques dated within the last year. This prevents accidentally reprinting duplicates from long ago, if you have a new batch of cheques that duplicate earlier cheque numbers.
•When using the <Add New> option from Account drop-down lists in any window for entering or editing transactions, don't allow an account being added to be set to be Hidden - that doesn't make sense, and causes problems.
•Fixed an error in the Opening Balances window, that prevented the up and down arrows in the final column from showing whether each account balance or total was being increased or decreased (as in a Journal Entry transaction). Also explained this feature in the Help on Opening Balances.
•Added to the Help topics on Importing accounts from QuickBooks, Quicken and Simply Accounting, to explain why transactions cannot also be imported from them, and what to do instead. (What you do instead is start with an Opening Balances transaction in ACCOUNTS, based on reports such as a Trial Balance in your previous program.)
•Added to the Help on entering Opening Balances, to explain what to do if you have outstanding bills at your opening date that you also want to enter.
•In the Sales Tax Codes window, there is now a warning if you have set up a code with no associated accounts. Also, in the Sales Tax Accounts window, added an "<Add New>" option to the Account drop-down list, so you can add any accounts you need that were not already there.
•This was the first full official release of ACCOUNTS. It was functionally the same as the last beta test version, 0.99c.