Sage 50 Accounts For Dummies, UK Edition

Introduction 1 About This Book 1 Foolish Assumptions 2 Icons Used in This Book 2 Beyond the Book 3 Where to Go from Here 3 Part 1: Getting Started with Sage 50 Accounts 5 Chapter 1: Introducing Sage 50 Accounts 7 Looking at the Varieties of Sage 7 Installing the Software 9 Getting what you need before you get started 9 Moving to the installation 10 Setting Up with the Active Setup Wizard 10 Registering Your Software 16 Finding Out How Easy Sage Is to Use 17 Navigating around Sage 17 Exploring the Menu bar 18 Using Wizards 24 Chapter 2: Creating Your Chart of Accounts and Assigning Nominal Codes 25 Understanding as Much as You Need to about Accounting 26 Dabbling in double-entry bookkeeping 26 Naming your nominals 27 Preparing reports 27 Looking at the Structure of Your COA 28 Checking out the default COA 29 Identifying balance sheet codes 31 Looking at profit and loss codes 33 Leaving gaps and mirroring codes 36 Accommodating floating nominals 36 Editing Your COA 37 Amending your COA 37 Creating a new COA 39 Checking Your COA 42 Previewing errors 42 Looking at some common errors 43 Chapter 3: Setting Up Records 45 Choosing How to Create Your Records 45 Getting a quick start using the New icon 46 Following the wizards brick by brick 46 Creating Customer and Supplier Records 46 Setting customer and supplier defaults 49 Deleting customer and supplier records 51 Having a change of view 51 Creating Your Nominal Records 52 Exploring your nominal records 52 Renaming existing nominal records 54 Adding a new nominal record 54 Looking for a nominal record 55 Looking around a nominal record 57 Deleting a nominal code 58 Recording Your Bank Accounts 59 Renaming an existing account 60 Creating a new account 60 Deleting a bank record 62 Getting Your Product Records in Order 62 Creating a product record 63 Editing a product record 65 Deleting a product record 66 Entering a project record 66 Setting Up Fixed Asset Records 68 Chapter 4: Recording Your Opening Balances 71 Timing Your Switch to Sage 72 Obtaining Your Opening Balances 72 Entering Opening Balances Using the Wizard 74 Entering your default date 75 Entering customer and supplier balances 76 Checking the customer and supplier opening balances 77 Reversing the nominal balances in preparation for entering the trial balance 77 Entering the trial balance from your accountant 78 Entering the uncleared transactions for your bank account 80 Checking opening balances against the trial balance from your accountant 81 Checking your data 81 Backing up your data 81 Manually Entering Information 82 Manually recording opening balances 82 Manually recording opening bank balances 83 Manually recording nominal opening balances 84 Putting in opening balances for products 85 Checking Your Opening Balances 87 Printing an opening trial balance 87 Dealing with errors 87 Part 2: Looking into Day-to-Day Functions 89 Chapter 5: Processing Your Customer Paperwork 91 Posting Batch Entry Invoices 91 Creating Credit Notes 94 Registering Payments from Your Customers 96 Giving credit where due – allocating credit notes 99 Recording payments on account 101 Deleting Invoices and Credit Notes 102 Chapter 6: Invoicing Your Customers 103 Deciding on an Invoice Type 104 Creating Invoices 104 Putting in the details 105 Getting to the main attraction 107 Filling in the order details 109 Getting down to the footer details 110 Going over payment details 111 Checking your profit on a product invoice 112 Remembering that Communication Is Key 113 Managing Your Invoice List 114 Printing invoices 114 Using Quick Print 116 Updating ledgers 116 Deleting invoices 118 Saving Time While You Ask for Money 118 Duplicating existing invoices 118 Repeating recurring transactions 118 Using defaults 120 Getting paid faster 120 Chapter 7: Dealing with Paperwork from Your Suppliers 121 Receiving and Posting Invoices 121 Setting up your receiving system 122 Posting invoices 122 Getting Credit 125 Allocating a Credit Note 127 Paying Your Suppliers 128 Printing a Remittance Advice Note 130 Chapter 8: Recording Your Bank Entries 133 Understanding the Different Types of Bank Account 134 Keeping up with current (1200) and deposit (1210) accounts 134 Counting the petty cash (1230) account 135 Handling your cash register (1235) 135 Managing the company credit card (1240) and credit card receipts (1250) 136 Tracking Bank Deposits and Payments 136 Transferring Funds between Accounts 140 Repeating Recurring Entries 141 Going for consistency with your bank entries 141 Repeating customer and supplier payments 144 Making regular journal entries – if you dare 144 Processing and posting recurring entries 145 Dealing with Petty Cash 147 Funding petty cash 147 Making payments from the tin 147 Reconciling the petty cash tin 148 Paying the Credit Card Bill 148 Making credit card payments 148 Reconciling the credit card statement 149 Chapter 9: Maintaining and Correcting Entries 151 Finding Ways to Find Transactions 151 Searching for Records 153 Making Corrections 154 Editing a Journal Entry 156 Deleting a Journal Entry 157 Checking and Maintaining Your Files 158 Checking errors 158 Using Recovery Tools 159 Reindexing data 161 Compressing data 161 Rebuilding data 161 Backing Up Data the Manual Way 161 Scheduling Backups 163 Restoring Data 164 Part 3: Functions for Plus and Professional Users 167 Chapter 10: Processing Sales Orders 169 Giving a Quote 169 Amending your invoice and order defaults 170 Creating a quotation 170 Allocating and amending stock for a quote 172 Converting a quotation to an invoice or order 172 Creating a Sales Order 173 Entering the sales order details 174 Dealing with cash sales 177 Editing your order 178 Putting sales orders on hold 179 Duplicating a sales order 179 Printing the order 180 Allocating Stock to an Order 180 Going on automatic 180 Assigning stock yourself 181 Amending the allocation of stock 181 Using the shortfall generator 182 Despatching Orders 183 Completing an order 183 Using goods despatched notes 183 Using the despatch facility 184 Recording a despatch manually 184 Invoicing Your Customers 185 Deleting and Cancelling Sales Orders 186 Deleting an order 186 Cancelling an order 187 Chapter 11: Processing Purchase Orders 189 Creating, Changing and Copying a Purchase Order 190 Creating a purchase order 190 Editing your order 192 Duplicating a purchase order 193 Placing the Goods on Order 194 Ordering via the conventional method 194 Manually placing goods on order 195 Completing Your Purchase Order 196 Printing Your Purchase Order 197 Getting the Goods In 198 Using goods received notes 198 Accepting delivery of everything 200 Taking in part of an order 200 Creating an Invoice from an Order 201 Deleting, Cancelling and Reinstating Orders 203 Deleting orders 203 Cancelling orders 204 Putting a cancelled order back on order 204 Chapter 12: Keeping Track of Your Products 205 Taking Stock 205 Importing your stocktake 207 Adjusting stock levels 208 Checking stock activity 208 Using the stock shortfall facility 209 Understanding a Bill of Materials 210 Creating a BOM 211 Checking stock availability for a BOM 213 Transferring stock for a BOM 214 Processing Stock Returns 215 Allocating Stock 217 Changing stock allocation 219 Issuing allocated stock 219 Chapter 13: Managing Projects 221 Appointing a Project’s Status and Costs 222 Assigning status 222 Looking at costs – types and codes 223 Changing status and costs 224 Managing Project Resources 225 Creating or amending a resource 226 Deleting a resource 226 Tracking Project Costs 227 Sharing out project charges 227 Issuing stock to a project 228 Counting costs from a supplier invoice 230 Integrating POP with project costing 230 Analysing Project Costs 232 Looking at the project’s activity 232 Comparing costs and budget 234 Charging Your Customers for a Project 235 Completing Your Project 236 Chapter 14: Using Foreign Currencies 239 Setting Up Foreign Currencies 240 Entering the exchange rate for a currency 240 Amending the Countries table 242 Tailoring the Foreign Trader Tool 243 Keeping Trade Status in Mind When Setting Up Accounts 244 Processing the Paperwork 245 Raising invoices, credit notes and orders 246 Entering batch invoices and credit notes 248 Banking on Foreign Currencies 249 Coping with customer receipts and supplier payments 249 Carrying out a bank transfer 251 Expecting changing exchange rates 253 Doing Revaluations with the Wizard 254 Part 4: Running Monthly, Quarterly and Annual Routines 257 Chapter 15: Reconciling Your Bank Accounts 259 Recognising Reasons to Reconcile 260 Using Bank Feeds to Post Data into Sage 261 Setting up bank feeds 261 Downloading your bank transactions 263 Reconciling your downloaded transactions 264 Double-checking everything 267 Manually Entering Your Bank Account Data 267 Using e-Banking to Import Data 268 Doing the Reconciliation 269 Troubleshooting When Your Account Doesn’t Reconcile 274 Rounding Up Stragglers 275 Chapter 16: Running Your Monthly and Yearly Routines 277 Adding Up Accruals 278 Counting Out Prepayments 280 Depreciating Fixed Assets 282 Writing down your assets 282 Posting assets and depreciation 284 Entering Journals 284 Completing journals 285 Rattling skeleton journals 286 Reversing journals 287 Carrying Out Your Month-End Routine 288 Ticking off your checklist 288 Running the month-end 289 Clearing stock transactions 291 Deleting stock 292 Clearing the audit trail 293 Managing Cash Flow 294 Doing a Year-End Routine 295 Chapter 17: Running Your VAT Return 297 Understanding Some VAT Basics 298 Knowing your outputs from your inputs 298 Cracking the codes 298 Comparing Sage’s VAT accounting methods 299 Managing Your VAT 301 Preparing your VAT return 301 Reconciling your VAT return 304 Checking Your VAT Return Using Reconciliation Reports 306 Checking under the standard scheme 306 Checking with cash accounting 308 Getting ready to reconcile after checking 308 Completing Your VAT return 309 Posting the VAT transfer 311 Submitting your VAT return 311 Posting your refund or payment in Sage 313 Investigating Other Useful Icons in Your VAT Module 313 Posting scale charges 313 Reporting Intrastat 314 Completing the EC Sales list 315 Understanding the Reverse Charge Sales list 315 Running a VAT audit 316 Accessing verification reports 317 Part 5: Using Reports 319 Chapter 18: Running Monthly Reports 321 Making the Most of Standard Reports 321 Checking the Chart of Accounts 322 Figuring Out the Financial Reports 322 Trying for an initial trial balance 323 Accounting for profit and loss 324 Comparing profits and losses 325 Weighing the balance sheet 327 Viewing the Audit Trail 328 Forgetting the Periods and Going Transactional 330 Going by date 330 Being number-friendly 331 Running the reports 331 Designing Reports to Suit Yourself 332 Chapter 19: Tackling the Complicated Stuff 337 Exporting Data 337 Sending spreadsheet stuff 338 Transferring Outlook contacts 338 Exporting to Word 339 Importing Data 341 Linking to Your Accountant 344 Sending accounts to your accountant 345 Making material changes 345 Getting back adjustments and narratives 346 Trying e-Banking 346 Configuring your e-Banking 347 Opting for e-payments 348 Reconciling electronically 351 Working with Document Manager 353 Adding attachments and filing system references 353 Deleting attachments 354 Chapter 20: Running Key Reports 355 Checking Activity through the Nominal Codes 355 Looking into Supplier Activity 358 Tracking Customer Activity 360 Checking Numbers with Supplier Daybook Reports 361 Finding the Customers Who Owe You 362 Paying Attention to Your Creditors 364 Handling Unreconciled Bank Transactions 366 Doing a Monthly Breakdown of Profit and Loss 369 Ranking Your Top Customers 370 Chapter 21: Going Mobile 373 Setting Up Sage Drive 373 Tackling Sage 50 Tracker 375 Installing Sage 50 Tracker 375 Looking at the Sage 50 Tracker dashboard 377 Sussing Out Sage 50 Mobile Sales 379 Keeping Connected with Connected Users 380 Part 6: The Part of Tens 381 Chapter 22: Ten (Okay, Eleven) Funky Functions in Sage 383 Browsing for Help with F1 384 Calculating Stuff with F2 384 Accessing an Edit Item Line for Invoicing with F3 384 Finding Multiple Functions with F4 384 Calculating Currency or Checking Spelling with F5 385 Copying with F6 385 Inserting a Line with F7 386 Deleting a Line with F8 386 Calculating Net Amounts with F9 386 Launching Windows with F11 387 Opening Report Designer with F12 387 Chapter 23: Ten (Plus One) Wizards to Conjure Up in Sage 389 Creating a New Customer Account 389 Setting Up a New Supplier 390 Initiating a New Nominal Account 390 Creating a New Bank Account 391 Launching a New Product 391 Starting Up a New Project 392 Helping Out at Month End: Opening/Closing Stock 392 Fuelling Up: Scale Charges 392 Saving Time: Global Changes 393 Handling Currencies: Foreign Bank Revaluation 394 Keeping Others in the Loop: Accountant Link 394 Index 397