Accounting | Silicon Bullet

Posts Tagged ‘ Accounting ’

Sage Instant Accounts 2013 launched today

Sage Instant Accounts 2013 has now been launched. It is perfect for new and small businesses. Sage Instant Accounts is the market-leading bookkeeping package that puts you in control of everyday essentials like cash flow and VAT. It also gives you the confidence to make more informed business decisions without being too complicated and without the need to have a bookkeeping qualification.

Some of the fantastic new features that larger companies already enjoy in Sage 50 Accounts 2013 have been extended into Sage Instant with this new version.

Sage Instant Accounts 2013

What’s New?

Quicker and easier to do everyday tasks

• Save time by creating quotes and invoices from your product list

• Record cash sales to speed up selling your stock

Improved VAT, month end and year end processing

• Clear and logical screens guide you through the VAT process

• Logical approach to month and year end

Easy to get set up and running

• Set up your software to match your business structure, quickly, easily and in one place

• Customise your company details

New Report Browser

• Detailed descriptions of each report, telling you what’s included

• A preview of each report so you can check that it’s the right one before you open or run it

• The ability to filter reports, so you only see the ones that you’re interested in

Easier to email your customers

• Save time, postage costs and promote quick payments by using email

• Choose your settings and layout and apply to all future email documents

• Save time, send invoices, statements and letters to your customers quickly and easily

Easier to export information to Microsoft Excel

• Export data directly, without having to spend time manipulating spreadsheets to match things up. Clear and up-to-date help when you need it

• Brand new look and feel to Sage Help – easy to find in just one click from any screen

They’ve also updated over 1,000 buttons and labels in Sage Instant Accounts 2013, removing abbreviations and making sure the words used are consistent and easy to understand.

Want to take a closer look?

If you would like to see a demonstration of Sage Instant Accounts 2013, please get in touch with Silicon Bullet. We offer competitive prices on upgrades as well as new software – and can provide refresher courses to get you up and running using all the new features.

2013: 01/14
CATEGORY: Sage
Sage Instant Accounts
Leave a comment

Sage Accounts – End of Life

Sage have confirmed that from 30 April 2014 they will no longer support customers using Sage 50 V2009 or Sage Instant V15. This does not mean that you can’t continue to use this software, but it does mean that you will no longer be able to have Sage Cover, and you may not be able to directly upgrade to the latest version automatically.

If you use these versions and would prefer the security of working with a currently supported Sage product after the end of life date, Sage have a couple of special offers available until 30th June 2012.

Please call Alison on 01604 420057 for pricing and details.

Remember, Silicon Bullet can often offer additional discounts on upgrades, so it is always worth calling for a quote. We will always at least match Sage Direct Sales prices but can offer a local service and really get to know your business and help apply your needs to the software.

For more information on Sage’ s Software Lifecycle policy, please get in touch.

2012: 06/25
CATEGORY: Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
Leave a comment

2012 Budget ~ what might it mean to you?

My thanks go to Brian D. Hogg of Brian Hogg Accountancy for writing this excellent review of the recent Budget. Brian Hogg Accountancy delivers a professional and efficient accountancy service geared to small and medium sized companies.You can contact Brian on 01604 781 593.

Mr. Osborne claimed that his Budget was aimed at the simplification and modernisation of the Tax System, the removal of barriers to the UK’s competitiveness and a warning of dire consequences for undertaking ‘morally repugnant’ aggressive tax avoidance.

But how does this affect the average small business person?

Income Tax

As previously announced, the personal allowance at which normally you start to pay tax will be £8,105 from 6^th April, 2012 increasing to £9,205 from 6^th April, 2013.

Basic rate tax will remain at 20% and from 2012/13 this will be on the first £34,370 of taxable income, reducing to £32,245 from 6^th April 2013. This means that most people with income over (£8,105 + 34,370) £42,475 for 2012/13 will have the excess taxed at least at 40%

Age related tax allowances are to be phased out (The Daily Mail refers to this as a ‘Granny Tax’)

The 50% tax rate on income over £150,000 is to be reduced to 45% on the grounds that it ‘raised next to nothing’ and the lower rate will encourage high rate tax payers to remain in the country!

Child benefit

Will be reduced incrementally when someone in a household has an income of more than £50,000. It will fall by 1% for every £100 earned over £50,000. Anyone earning more than £60,000 will lose the benefit completely.

It appears that child benefit will still be paid to all, but claimants will have to fill out self assessment tax forms and they will have the relevant amount reclaimed via their tax assessments.

Corporation Tax

Although reductions were announced in the main rate of Corporation Tax, there were no changes in the threshold rates for small companies (profits up to £300,000), which remains at 20%.

Capital Allowances

As previously announced, the annual writing-down allowance (main Pool) will be reduced to 18% instead of 20%. The maximum annual amount of 100% Annual Investment Allowance is being reduced from April 2012 to £25,000 (previously £100,000). These reductions could be significant in terms of cash flow for businesses making significant investments in capital items such as vans or lorries exceeding £25,000 per annum.

The emission thresholds for cars are changing to match the emissions target. This could mean reduced capital allowances for businesses buying or leasing cars.

National Insurance

There are no changes to previously proposed rates, but detailed consultations are to start on integrating the operation of National Insurance and Income Tax. This seems a good way to keep civil servants busy for a long time.

Capital Gains Tax

Not much change here. The annual exemption in 2012/13 will be £10,600 with tax on gains within the basic rate income tax band being at 18% and gains above at 28%. Entrepreneur’s relief on qualifying business disposals gives an effective rate of 10%.

Stamp Duty

If you are buying a house costing over £2m you are probably not living in Northamptonshire, so the increase in rates will not affect most of us.

Inheritance Tax

No change in 40% rate or threshold of £325,000.

VAT

The VAT registration turnover threshold has been increased to £77,000 from 1^st April, 2012 (previously £73,000). Remember this is a rolling 12 month period not the accounts year or tax year.

There are some proposed changes to the supply of hot food (an outrageous attack on those of us who enjoy hot pies and pasties?) and static caravans.

SO ~ did the Chancellor do anything to help small businesses? I am still looking but let me know if you find anything!

The above is just a summary of part of the Budget. There may be other items that affect you particularly. Speak to your Accountant for advice on your own circumstances.

2012: 04/03
CATEGORY: General
Leave a comment

Argh – my Sage has Errors – what shall I do?

There is nothing quite like that sinking feeling you get when you run a Sage Data check and find there are Errors in your Sage Data – we have had two enquiries this month. We go months with no one having any problems at all – then all of a sudden getting two at once seems very odd – or maybe Sage Errors are just like buses.

If you are a Sage 50 or Sage Instant user and don’t actually know what I am talking about – then you need to learn some Sage housekeeping basics.

But what can you do if your Sage 50 or Sage Instant Accounts data has errors?

First things first – don’t panic.

First of all – take a backup of your data, so that if anything goes wrong with your attempts to fix the data you can always get back to how your accounts look today. I would change the name of the file to include ‘with errors’ in the name, so as to easily identify it.

If you have a version of Sage older than Sage 50 2012 you can use the Fix button on the File Maintenance report to attempt to fix the data. This often fixes the problem by Sage rebuilding your data again from scratch using your original transactions. If you ‘Fix’ the data and no errors show up when the data check is run again then you can carry on as usual. I would make sure, though, that bank balances are correct and would check balances on all or a random selection of customer and supplier accounts, just to make sure everything is OK.

In Sage 50 2012 you are faced with the new Recovery Tools option. Next to Recovery Tools is a link called “How to fix errors & warnings in your Sage data” which takes you to the My Data area on the My Sage website. Here you will find information on how to avoid corruption, a list of non-fixable errors, and Sage’s Data Repair Service. There are also links to help articles about data repair and updating your software . To access this help, you will need to have a login to the Sage website set up; if you don’t have Sage Cover then you will not have access to some of these areas and links, in which case your local Sage Reseller will be able to help you out.

Sage Recovery Tools

If you click on the Recovery Tools option you will first be prompted to take a backup before you can do anything else. The following screen then gives you 8 options of tools which could fix your data. You do get guidance on which area the error is in so it should be fairly obvious which tool is required.

If your attempts to fix your data fail, and you still have errors listed, then you can go back to your last clean backup (one with no errors) and restore the data. You will then need to re-key any data that you had entered since that date. There are more tricks which are too detailed to go into here.

If you do not have a clean backup, or the time taken to re-key data is just not practical, then we do offer an alternative to the Sage Data Repair Services through a business partner who was a developer at Sage for many years. The service offered is cheaper than Sage and in the two recent cases we have dealt with the data has been fixed out of hours for us and returned to the client for the next morning, meaning any disruption could be kept to a minimum.

So, if you have errors in your data, don’t panic, but do something about it to remove them. For further advice on steps to take, have a look at the Leyburn Solutions Website.

2011: 12/28
CATEGORY: Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
Leave a comment

Good Housekeeping in Sage Accounts

Do you practise good housekeeping with your Sage 50 Accounts Data, or your Sage Instant Accounts? We have had two cases in the last week of clients with errors in their Sage data which had to be sent away to be fixed, but with good housekeeping this cost could have been avoided.

So – what is ‘good housekeeping’ in Sage? What should you be doing on a day-to-day basis to help prevent errors, or give you the ability to return to ‘clean data’?

File -> Maintenance

Sage recommend that you check your data regularly, always before taking a backup, and after restoring your data too. I would also add that data should be checked when data has been imported also. You check your data by going to File -> Maintenance then clicking the Check Data button.

Sage then runs through your data, checking for input errors, internal inconsistencies, missing data and invalid nominal account types, and presents you with the File Maintenance Problem Report. The report contains 3 pages – Errors, Warnings and Comments.

File Maintenance Problems Report

Errors show data problems.
Warnings indicate serious problems which should be attended to but are not as serious as errors.
Comments are the least serious, and often refer to inconsistencies which probably exist just because of a perfectly valid way that you are using the data – e.g. negative budgets or negative balances on the sales or purchase ledger.

I would always recommend that you seek help from your local Sage Reseller, or from Sage Support if you have Errors or Warnings – and you should NEVER carry on using data with Errors, but immediately seek assistance. See my post Argh – my Sage has Errors – what shall I do?

The File Maintenance Problem Report will look different in Sage 50 2012 compared to older versions. In 2012 you have Recovery Tools and in earlier versions there is a Fix button. I will go into more detail on what you should do if you have Errors in a later post.

If you always do a data check before running a backup, and back up when you have done any data entry, then when you find errors which can’t be fixed using the Recovery Tools or Fix button you will always have the option of restoring your last known clean data and then re-keying your recent transactions. The problems arise if you back up without checking data first, so all your backups may well also contain the error. This is the point at which your data needs to be sent away to be fixed.

So 3 simple rules for Good Housekeeping in Sage Accounts:

Check your data
Back up your data
Stop for Errors

If you follow these rules you should find you never need to send your data away to be fixed. And sod’s law states that if you do practise good housekeeping then your data will never corrupt!

2011: 12/12
CATEGORY: Sage
Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
10 comments

Customising your view in Sage

Are there columns in Sage which you always tab over and skip when you are entering data in your Sage 50 or Instant Accounts package? Fields like extra reference, department code and project are not used by many companies and yet they appear on many of the data entry screens. Then I have an excellent tip for you.

Right click on the column headings.

When I was taking my annual Sage Accreditation course a couple of years ago the trainer did something I had never noticed before – he right clicked on the column titles in the Batch Supplier Invoices data entry screen, and a little list came up with ticks showing which columns should appear. You can then tick or untick so only columns you actually use appear in the data entry screen.

This was something that had been available in Sage for a while, but had never been listed as a new feature - apparently the feature had been available for a while but appeared with no fanfare – and yet it is something I demonstrate when I am training both experienced and novice users and a feature that is very popular. It makes entering the data much less confusing for novice users with fewer columns to fill in and much speedier too.

Right click on the customer list title bar.

Also if you follow the same trick in other parts of the program, you can customise the columns you see in the Customer List, Invoice List, Order List and on many other screens too. If one of the default columns shown such as credit limit is not relevant to your use of Sage then you can remove it from the display and add far more useful columns – the Average Time to Pay column available in Sage 50 can be quite an eye opener! Just look at my screen shot to see all the column options you have in the customer list screen.

So why not customise your Sage windows to make you data entry easier, or your screen displays more relevant to your business. Remember also another quick tip: once you have the information in the screen just the way you want it you can use the print list button at the bottom of the screen to send it to print, or in the main menus you can choose File-> Office Integration ->Contents to Microsoft Excel to dump the screen view in Excel.

2011: 11/17
CATEGORY: Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
10 comments

Bank Reconciliation – Is it really necessary?

So you have heard people talk about the bank reconciliation but have no idea why you should be doing it, or even what it is. You enter all your transactions in Sage (or your other bookkeeping software or manual books) so what is the point of doing the bank reconciliation?

First what is a bank reconciliation? In basic terms it is checking your accounts data against your bank statement. In Sage it consists of ticking items off in the bank reconciliation screen, by moving them from the top window to the bottom window, but in a manual system it means checking your books against your statement. Also in accounting it is performed so you are aware at the end of the month of any presented cheques or uncleared payments so you can match your bank balance to your book balance.

There are many good reasons, some of which apply to you, whichever package you use to ‘do’ your accounts, and some which are specific to the bank reconciliation in Sage 50 and Sage Instant Accounts.

It is an excellent way of checking for errors – even the best bookkeepers make mistakes, or miss items like direct debits or one-off payments that just appear on the bank statement – by doing the bank reconciliation you spot omissions and duplications very easily.
In Sage if you mark an account as needing a bank reconciliation then you need to actually do it or you will never be able to clear down the transactions in the future. Bank transactions which are not marked as reconciled are considered to be still required and the clear audit trail will not remove them.
If you can it allows you to split the workload. Let one staff member enter the items, and someone else do the bank reconciliation, that way you are able to double-check all your entries. I have bookkeeping clients who do their own data entry, but like me to come and do their bank reconciliation and VAT returns so they have the peace of mind that any errors will be spotted and verified before the VAT return is submitted.

Specifically in Sage, once you have completed your Bank Reconciliation you know any items left in the top window are the ones you need to check up on as they may have been entered incorrectly, a cheque might have been lost or a promised receipt never actually hit your account. The Bank Reconciliation in Sage is also one of the areas that has been vastly improved in the last few updates, with better reports, the ability to transfer the contents of the screen to Excel for analysis and the stamping of all transactions with a date when they are reconciled, making spotting mistakes much easier too.

The Sage bank reconciliation window.

If you would like a training session to get you started with doing an effective bank reconciliation for yourself then this is one of the areas that lends itself to the remote training I do using PC remote control and a telephone call to talk you through the process.

In conclusion: is a bank reconciliation really necessary? I say yes, it is!

2011: 11/07
CATEGORY: Sage 50
Sage Instant Accounts
3 comments

Sage Instant Accounts installation advice

Are you using the correct version of Instant Accounts V2011 (17)?

Watch out if you are installing the latest version of Instant Accounts; there are a couple of known issues you should be aware of to ensure you are working with the correctly updated version.

Also, if you are using the software already it is worth checking which version you are actively using.

When you first install from the CD, you might find you are working with a version which needs updating. The CD I installed was bought in April, and was version 17.0.12.196 , and this is 3 updates out of date.

The problem is if you then ask Sage Instant to check for updates, no updates are found. This error is already known and logged by Sage Support. Also if you go to the Sage Accounts Downloads and Updates page only Update 3 is available for Instant Accounts, and this will not install on version 17.0312.196 – you need Updates 1 and 2 first.

The answer is install the Sage 50 Accounts 2011 updates then install the Sage Instant Accounts update 3. Sage 50 and Instant Accounts are basically the same product behind the scenes but Instant has the extra bells and whistles turned off , hence the Sage 50 Updates will bring your software up to the correct level to allow the Sage Instant Update 3 to be installed.

You should finally end up with Version 17.0.15.208 – at the time of writing, 5th November 2011, this is the most up to date version and the one you should be working with.

If you have bought Sage Instant recently then Updates 1 and 2 install automatically when you first run the software, but if your copy has been gathering dust waiting for you to have time to install it then you will need to follow the process I have described.

So – if you use Sage Instant Accounts, go to Help and About in the software and see if you are working with the most up to date version.

2011: 11/05
CATEGORY: Sage
Sage Instant Accounts
4 comments

Sage, IT, small business and networking bullets of wisdom.