Tips

Here are some handy tips for speeding things up, and understanding a few of the tricky bits in Saasu. Sometimes you need to troubleshoot a problem you may be having.

Finding Lost Transactions

Sometimes you may think you have lost a transaction you have entered. Here are the main reasons people can’t find what they’re after:

You have entered the incorrect year – It’s a new year and you accidentally keep using the old year.
You have entered the sale as a quote or order so it’s not displaying in the transaction lists. This is usually because the filter for the list needs to be Quotes, Orders and Sales.
You click Duplicate before you save the transaction you have just entered – This overwrites the unfinished transaction data.
You edit an old transaction as though it’s a new one. For example, you might load an old transaction with the intention of duplicating it. Then you forget you’ve done this and start typing over details for the new transaction.
You have entered them in the wrong file.

How do I find a transaction if I have done none of the above?

The best way is to run the list of transactions for the maximum filter set, preferably for the contact in question. For example, you can list all Quotes, Orders and Sales for the required contact from 01Jan07 – 01Dec10. This will catch most of their transactions.

Another approach is to run a Contact Statement report for the contact you would have used for a large date range to see if there are any outlier transactions where you may have entered the transaction dates incorrectly.

Delete Transactions in Bulk

You can delete groups of transactions or contacts within a file. This feature is useful for serial errors in data entry, importing duplicate data, or simply when you want to start fresh.

Warning: Deleting anything in bulk is dangerous, so be certain about your actions.

Things to note about deleting data:

For your protection, we impose a rule of deleting only 10 contacts at a time. However, you can delete more than 10 sales or purchases at a time. When you delete sales or purchases, Saasu also deletes the associated payments, activities, and attachments.
To control whether people have access to transactions and the ability to delete them, consider applying an appropriate Role to their user access for each file.

Deleting sales or purchases in bulk:

Click Sales in the main menu.
List the sales transactions you need to delete (set the filters in this screen accordingly).
Tick the checkboxes beside the transactions you want to delete.
Click the Delete link above the list to remove the transactions.
Repeat this process for the other transaction types.

Problems Opening PDFs

The most common causes we see are:

You don’t have Adobe Reader installed.
You have an older version of Adobe Reader.
Your Adobe Reader session is corrupt.
If you click the Print PDF link and nothing happens, you might have a popup blocker active in your browser. Ensure you allow popups from https://secure.saasu.com.

Your browser might prompt you to open or save the file or the preview window that pops up might be blank. You can take the following actions:

Ensure you have the latest version of Adobe Reader installed.
Try clearing your browser cache:
- In Internet Explorer, select Tools > Internet Options > Browsing History > Delete.
- In Google Chrome, select Tools > Options > Under the Hood > Privacy > Clear browsing data ….
- In Mozilla Firefox, select Tools > Clear Recent History.
Try viewing the PDF document using different browsers.
Certain antivirus software and browser toolbars may block the popup window. Try temporarily disabling the antivirus software or toolbar to see if this fixes the problem.
If you have Adobe Reader installed and clearing the cache doesn’t help, try re-installing Adobe Reader.

I installed the latest Adobe Reader, but the browser still prompts me to open or save.

If you have already installed the latest Adobe Reader, but when trying to view PDF invoices if the browser still keeps prompting you to open or save the file, follow these steps to configure your browser properly to use the Adobe Reader to preview PDF invoices:

Select Open in the dialog box.
Click Choose.
Select Adobe Reader from the list of programs.
Select Always use this program to open this file type.
Click OK.

Note: The above steps could be slightly different depending on the browser you are using.

Older versions of Adobe Reader

.pdf

.aspx

.nspx

.pdf

Note: If you do not have Adobe Reader or another application capable of viewing the PDF documents installed, you will not be able view the PDF invoices.

Download the latest version of Adobe Reader for your operating system

Transactions in Suspense

A common situation in business is that the bookkeeper isn’t sure how to code a transaction but they need to enter it in order to complete a bank reconciliation or some other task. This person usually amends the coding after seeking advice from the business owner, accountant, or another person they report to.

If you find yourself in this position, you can use the Asset:– Unspecified – bank account that appears in the account list if you aren’t sure which bank account has made the payment (or received the receipt).

If it’s the account you aren’t sure about (eg whether it should be Expense:Office Supplies or Expense:Sundries), you could create and use a temporary account called Expense: Suspense (for example).

Accountants will often use an account like the one above for holding transactions that need to be finalised when more information is available. It’s normally used as a temporary coding measure and should be changed as soon as the verified information is available. Generally, it’s not a good idea to use these codings unless your accountant has explained the implications of doing this. Usually, an accountant’s workflow would include clearing these codings at the end of each accounting session, or at least by the next tax reporting period or financial year end.

Reduce data entry errors

There are several methods for reducing input errors. Here are a few ideas:

Basic review of your transaction listings

As you create transactions, these will appear in your transaction list for the date period selected. The process is usually to add a new transaction to the list, save and close the transaction, and then check the transaction for accuracy. You can’t check all the details for transactions, but you can verify the main items such as date, amount, and contact. Of all the checks you can do, this is the most basic and the quickest, but the least thorough.

Review of your Tax Detail report

This is a good report for checking you have used the correct tax codes and ensuring you have chosen the correct account for your transactions. You might scan the report to ensure all your sales appearing in an account for Income: light fittings (for example) would have the same tax code (eg G1). You might also check that there aren’t any stray transactions in this account that shouldn’t be there.

Use the duplicate function for adding transactions
When you use the Duplicate button on any Add/Edit Transaction screen you are creating an exact copy of the transaction you are viewing with a few fields cleared (eg the Date field). This helps produce consistency in your transaction adding over time because you will be using the same Accounts, Tax Codes, summary information, and so on that you are duplicating.

Two Digit Years

When you enter a two-digit year below 30 (00-29), the web finance engine will assume the century to be 2000. For example, if you enter 1/3/03, this will be interpreted as 01-Mar-2003. If you enter a year of 30 or more (30-99), it assumes the century is 1900. For example, if you enter 1/7/98, this will be interpreted as 01-Jul-1998.

If this is not what you want, enter the four digit date. For example, if you want to enter 1-Jul-2031, enter 1/7/2031.

Session logged out

Sometimes you may find your session on Saasu terminates and you are logged out. You can check our uptime reporting to see if it’s your connection or whether Saasu in general is affected.

If you can’t see this Success page, the server network your data is on may not be working.

If you can’t see this Sign-in page, the server network online accounting application may not be working.

Resolving connection issues

I can’t get to Saasu.com homepage

If our homepage is down, it’s quite possible that you can still get to the Saasu online accounting application by going straight to the sign-in page at https://secure.saasu.com/a/net/signin.aspx.

I can see other websites but not yours?

Get a DOS prompt up and enter:
ping secure.saasu.com
ping www.saasu.com
If both respond, it might be a local issue with your web browser or computer.

I can see your application but I keep getting the same error when I navigate to a particular page – Why is this?

First try doing a full reload of the page by pressing F5 or clicking the Refresh button in your browser. If this doesn’t work, try signing out andsigning back in once you have cleared your cache:

Firefox: Tools > Clear Private Data > tick Cache and Click Clear Private Data Now
Chrome: Tools > Options > Under the Hood (tab) > Clear Browsing Data (button) > Empty the Cache (tick)
Internet Exploer (PC): Tools > Internet Options > General (tab) > Browsing History (section) > Delete (button in browsing history section) > Delete (all ticked)
Safari: Safari > Empty cache

I can get to Saasu.com but when I click Sign-in it never loads?

Get a DOS prompt up and enter ipconfig /flushdns. Sometimes your internet service provider (ISP) might have issues seeing our domain name server (DNS). This flushes the connection between them.

Javascript disabled (transaction lines missing)

Line Items are missing from your transactions? You may have accidentally disabled Javascript by accepting a security pop-up or option. To re-enable javascript go to:

Firefox: Tools > Options > Content (tab) > Enable Javascript (ticked)
Chrome: Settings (spanner) > Options > Under the hood (tab) > Content Settings > Javascript (highlight) > Allow all screens to run Javascript (radio button)
Internet Explorer (PC): Tools > Internet Options > Security > Custom Level > Active scripting > Enable (tick)

Rounding Differences

Welcome to the world of cents and dimes! Sometimes as accountants and business owner every last cent counts. Unfortunately you can get situations where we can’t find that last cent. Well it could easily be our fault. In Saasu you will sometimes see differences of a cent or more where you would expect two numbers to match. There are several legitimate reasons for this which can’t necessarily be removed entirely:

High levels of decimalisation – means that data is stored in Saasu sometimes down to 6 decimal places. Typically, it’s foreign currency or inventory-based amounts that require this level of decimalization. Totals in screen sometimes have to round these numbers. Then other numbers are calculated basis these rounded numbers. We could do the calculations off unrounded numbers but then we need to display all the decimals to make it keep it consistent with that level of detail – and that can look ugly.
Roll-up of rounding in totals – lots of small transactions when summed from rounded numbers can generate a difference to total numbers in a report. The data being used in the reports comes from the same source so consequently, from an accounting point of view, it’s generally balanced. On screen, it can appear to be out by a cent. Sometimes it can be out by more if lots of transactions are involved and we are creating a total amount to display on the screen.
Rounding differences in tax amounts can occur where Saasu uses what’s called the Line Items method of working out tax on each line in a transaction. Other systems use the Gross Taxable method (e.g. MYOB). We feel the line item method is more data entry friendly as you don’t get non exact tax amounts on individual lines in a transaction. These can be very annoying for data entry people.
Technical reasons include the rounding methodologies adopted. In our case, we use the standard Microsoft SQL server rounding implementation used by thousands of financial services businesses around the world.

In summary it’s hard for us to achieve a perfect result. In fixing one situation we actually cause a problem for people in another. That is, it is essentially unsolvable for all requirements. We can solve the problem to a degree by forcing 2 decimals on our customers. However many businesses deal in micro payments and need at least the third decimal. Several inventory, commodity-based or multi-currency business models need high levels of decimalization also.

For example, an inventory item called SMS is set up and costs 18.5 cents (being 0.185). Saasu’s:

screen will display 0.19 on several screens and reports that round to 2 decimals.
database will be storing 0.185.

Rounding in Australia – See this advice from the ATO on GST rounding methods.