Comparing MechIQ With Your Old System
For the first week or two, most garages keep their old system running alongside MechIQ. Every job goes into both, so you can check MechIQ's figures against books you already trust before you switch the old one off.
The Compare with your old system card on Finance → Accounts → Overview gives you the sheet to do that check with. It is a comparison, not an import: nothing is sent to your old system, and nothing in MechIQ changes when you download it.
You only see the card while your garage is trialling MechIQ. If you are still running both after the trial ends, ask us to switch it back on.
Downloading the workbook
- Go to Finance → Accounts, Overview tab, and scroll to Compare with your old system.
- Pick the period: Today, Yesterday, This week (Monday to today), This month (the 1st to today), or Choose dates for any range up to a year.
- Click Download workbook. You get one Excel file named
mechiq-money-in-and-out-<dates>.xlsx.
You can download any period as often as you like. Downloading does not mark anything as done, so losing the file or wanting last Tuesday again is never a problem. Days follow your garage's own time zone.
What's in it
| Sheet | What it lists | Dated by |
|---|---|---|
| Summary | The totals for the period, ready to tick against your old system's own totals | -- |
| Sales | Every invoice and credit note raised: job, registration, customer, labour / parts / other / discounts, net, VAT, gross, and what's been paid | The day it was raised |
| Sales parts | One row per part sold, with part number, quantity and price | The invoice's day |
| Payments received | Every customer payment, deposit, refund and credit note used: method, reference, amount, how much went to invoices and how much was left on account, and which invoices it paid | The day the money moved |
| Purchases | Every supplier invoice, delivery docket, till receipt and supplier credit note: supplier, their invoice number, your PO number, the job it was for, net, VAT, gross, what's been paid, and the lines | The date on the supplier's document |
| Supplier payments | Money paid to suppliers, refunds from them and settlement discounts, with the bills each one paid | The day the money moved |
Credit notes and refunds are negative, so a column adds up to the real figure.
Numbers are real numbers and dates are real dates, so you can sum, sort and filter them in Excel. Each sheet has filters on its header row.
Where your old system's numbers appear
Customers, suppliers and jobs brought across from your old system carry its numbers in the Old-system customer no., Old-system supplier no. and Old-system job no. columns, so you can find the same record on both sides. A payment against an invoice that was imported from your old system shows that invoice as (old system) in Settles.
Reading the Settles column
INV-0012: 50.00 of 120.00 means this payment put 50.00 towards an invoice of 120.00 -- a part payment. A credit note used against an invoice shows as a negative amount marked (credit note).
What the Summary adds up
- Sales -- invoices, credit notes and the total, each as count, net, VAT and gross.
- Payments received -- the total for each payment method (refunds taken off), the overall total, how much of it was refunds, and how much was left on customers' accounts as deposits or overpayments. Credit notes used at the till move no money, so they are counted separately and not in the total.
- Purchases -- supplier invoices, supplier credit notes and the total, as count, net, VAT and gross.
- Supplier payments -- the total paid out for each method and overall. Settlement discounts move no money, so they are listed separately.
What isn't in it
- Invoices and customer credit imported from your old system. They are already in the old system's totals.
- Account statements. A statement rolls up invoices that are each listed on their own already.
- Cancelled invoices, voided supplier bills and voided supplier payments. None of them are money.
- Goods received with no supplier invoice yet. That's stock in the building, not a purchase. It appears on the Purchases sheet once the invoice is captured.
- Supplier returns waiting for a credit. The supplier's credit note, once you capture it, is the document. It appears as a negative row on Purchases.
Why a total might not match
- Dates. Sales are dated the day they were raised in MechIQ and purchases by the supplier's document date. If the same document went into your old system on a different day, it lands in a different period there.
- A write-off or price change after the invoice was keyed into the old system. MechIQ shows the invoice as it is now. The Discounts / write-offs net column and the Notes column show what changed.
- VAT on a supplier bill. MechIQ works out a bill's VAT line by line from the rates on it. If your old system took a single VAT figure off the bill, the two can be a cent apart.
Related
- Accounts -- the Accounts page, and the separate Export to accounts button for your bookkeeper. That export is for your accounting package. This workbook isn't, and downloading it does not put anything in your books.
- Which money figure is which