Documentation/ Accounting/ Practice mode
Practice mode: keeping the books for several clients
Practice mode fits the application to anyone who only posts invoices: it simplifies the menu, takes out the tabs that do not apply, and changes the way documents are uploaded. It also changes how usage is counted.
Turned on by how the account is set up. It affects the menu, uploading and the invoice editor.
On this page
What it is
An accountancy practice runs no warehouse: it receives no delivery notes, places no orders, keeps no recipe costings. It receives its clients' invoices and posts them. Practice mode leaves the application with that and takes the rest away.
It is not a different version of the product: it is the same application with the features that do not apply hidden. It is turned on by how the account is set up; there is no switch for the user.
To keep each managed client's data apart, practice mode leans on companies and on projects, both of which remain available.
What goes from the menu
| No longer shown | Why |
|---|---|
| Purchase and sales delivery notes | A practice does not handle goods received. |
| Received products | It depends on delivery notes. |
| Purchase orders | Nothing is bought, it is posted. |
| Recipe Costing (AI) | It is a cost management feature. |
| Product master | There are no items to maintain. |
What stays is what gets used: purchase, expense and sales invoices, the supplier and client masters, the chart of accounts, projects and the integrations.
What goes from the editor
Opening an invoice, the editor keeps the General tab, the header with all its fields, and takes three away:
- Items, the list of lines.
- References, the delivery notes attached.
- Consolidation, the matching against delivery notes.
Which fits the work: to post an invoice you need issuer, dates, net, VAT, total and accounts. The detail of the lines plays no part in the entry.
Uploading changes completely
This is the most visible difference, and the one that most surprises anybody coming from the business mode:
| Business mode | Practice mode | |
|---|---|---|
| How the PDF goes up | Page by page, then joined again by auto-merge. | Whole, in a single step. |
| What has to be ticked | Auto-merge, on by default. | Nothing, unless the file holds several invoices. |
| What gets analysed | Every page selected. | The first and the last two. |
The screen's instruction is blunt: upload the whole document, do not split the pages.
Which pages are analysed
On an invoice of several pages, the first and the last two are analysed. That is where the details that matter are: the header at the start, the totals at the end.
Hence this upload's one precaution: if the first page is a cover sheet with no header details, no issuer, no number, no date, take it out before processing. Otherwise a page that contributes nothing gets analysed.
Clicking a file shows its pages, and you can deselect the ones not needed: cover sheets, advertising, blank pages.
The Multiple invoices tick box
Each file has a tick box for the case where it holds more than one invoice. Ticking it changes the treatment completely:
| Situation | What to do | Result |
|---|---|---|
| One invoice of several pages | Upload it whole and tick nothing. | A single document. |
| One file with several invoices | Tick Multiple invoices. | Each page is processed as an invoice of its own. |
Ticking it by mistake on a five-page invoice produces five incomplete invoices. It is the commonest slip, and it is put right by merging them afterwards.
The limit per batch
A maximum of 250 pages or documents per batch. And the screen adds a recommendation: wait for the processing to finish, or at least five minutes, before uploading another.
It is the restriction to bear in mind when working through a whole client's post: with large volumes, split it into batches and let the system breathe between one and the next.
Usage is counted per invoice
This is the difference that most affects what you pay for:
| Kind of account | What usage is counted in |
|---|---|
| Business | Pages. |
| Practice | Invoices. |
A one-page invoice and a six-page one use the same amount in practice mode. It fits the way the work is charged, by document posted, and explains why uploading sends the whole PDF instead of cutting it up.
Things that come up
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The delivery notes and the product master are not there | Practice mode hides them. | That is how it is meant to work. |
| The invoice has no items tab | The editor is simplified in this mode. | The details for the entry are on the General tab. |
| One invoice has been split into five documents | Multiple invoices was ticked when it should not have been. | Merge the documents that came out. |
| The header arrives empty | The first page was a cover sheet with no details. | Take it out before processing and upload again. |
| The upload gets stuck with a lot of files | The limit of 250 per batch was exceeded. | Upload in batches, waiting between one and the next. |