As well as a range of enhancements to the platform, including further transformational improvements moving over to our principal hosting provider, Amazon Web Services – the Aqilla platform is based on “Enterprise Class” Cloud architecture running on servers based in the United Kingdom.
The key changes customers will note in this release are as follows:
MTD Cash-Based VAT Reporting
Following the introduction of MTD (Making Tax Digital) in 2019, HMRC required VAT registered businesses with taxable turnover above the VAT registration threshold to keep records in digital form and file their VAT Returns using software – specifically communicating with HMRC digitally via its Application Programming Interface (API) platform (rather than entering data into HMRC’s existing VAT online services).
Aqilla was one of the first accounting software vendors to provide support for MTD (from day one in March 2019) to provide support for such services including Group VAT reporting, whereby multiple companies can submit a single VAT return to HMRC MTD for all subsidiary entities.
In this new release, those operating on a Cash-Based VAT basis (as opposed to the more common Accrual basis) can now also now use the same MTD VAT services.
In Cash-Based mode, VAT returns are calculated based on when invoices have been paid as opposed to when you have been invoiced in Accrual mode. The option is specified in Company Edit (found under the Configuration tab) – VAT Basis = Cash-Basis.
Debtor Statements now new “Statements of Accounts” function
A new “Statements of Accounts” function replaces the previous function for printing Debtor Statements. The new function additionally provides support for the production of standard layout statements (or those customised using our “VTL” functionality) not only for Debtor accounts,, but also with this release, Creditors and Client accounts. Client accounts (indicated by the setting of the appropriate flag) allows for sales invoices to be created against creditor accounts, useful for those circumstances when a company buys from and sells to the same legal entity without having to maintain separate creditor/debtor accounts and balances.
Project selection for sales invoicing
A new flag has been added to Instance Settings (found under the Configuration tab) which results in the selection of Projects when invoicing clients to be limited solely to those associated with that Customer. This can drastically reduce the likelihood of misposting invoices against the wrong code in complex multi-project environments.
Lookup for customised user fields / Attributes
Any attribute that has been defined using the Attribute Wizard with a Lookup Group will now offer the list of Lookup Values when making an enquiry by the attribute.
Default values for customised user fields / Attributes
It is now possible to specify a default value when using the Attribute Wizard to define an attribute with a lookup value. The Wizard will offer a list of the valid Display Values for the specified Lookup Group. If no default is required, select “—None—“.
Editability of attachments and comments on posted Documents
Historically attachments and comments have been set to a read only status once the associated document has been fully posted. For some customers we have provided options to subsequently edit both (for example to add additional comment or replace the a quotation with a final confirmed contract against a sales invoice etc.). In this new release there is a new additional option in Configuration-Instance Settings to select how editability is to be treated.
Users can select to Normal, whereby attachments and comments obey the standard read-only rule. If set to Always, attachments and comments are editable even if the document is in a read-only state. If set to Custom, the editability of attachments and comments is defined individually for each Entity Type (in effect each Document or type of data object in Aqilla) in the Configuration-Entity Settings function.
The end of Microsoft Internet Explorer is coming….welcome Microsoft “new” Edge
This week saw Microsoft launch the replacement Google Chromium-based (“new Edge”) web browser for all it’s current Windows operating systems.
This new product is a replacement for the original Microsoft Edge, which in itself was introduced in 2015 to replace the venerable Internet Explorer – a browser based on increasingly insecure and unmaintained decades-old Trident web rendering engine technology which has not met the basics of most current internet browsing and security standards for well over half a decade. As a result of this, we at Aqilla along with many other software developers are calling it a day on the use of Internet Explorer.
In this new release if you are using the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser to access Aqilla you will now receive the following warning message when you log in:
“It appears that you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer. Please note that support for Aqilla on Internet Explorer will cease as of 31 March 2020. We recommend you to develop a plan to upgrade to a more up to date browser as soon as possible.”
You may continue to use the browser with this release of Aqilla but you should plan to migrate to a more up-to-date browser such as Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox before the end of March 2020.