I run Sage Instant Accounting, and as my business has grown I am generating hundreds of invoices a month across a wide range of clients (with new ones coming on every month) but for the same class of products and it is taking ages to book all these invoices in individually.
I want to explore a process where I log all the invoices (including Net and VAT amounts and payment status of each invoice) in Excel instead (which is much faster) then book a single 'invoice' each month in sage under 'Credit customers' with the correct cumualtive Net and VAT amounts. I will then book payments against this amount as customers pay. I obviously keep copies of all the invoices as well.
I was wondering if this is allowed from a records keeping standpoint, given I have the invoices, the excel record and the sage file (showing an accurate representation of my business)?
but to do that you seem to be losing much of the point of having Sage? Really don't think that it's a good idea to keep all of that invoice information outside of the package and lose the drill down facilities for when your chasing debtors.
I use Sage Line 50 so afraid can't advise directly but I assume that Instant has probably got a similar facility to input invoices in batches which would solve your problem. (I input invoices under customer rather than from invoices on the main tool bar).
Other alternatives might be to give VT Transaction+ a go. It's got a spreadsheet mode which sounds as though it might be good for you. A lot of people on here use it (I started my trial last week after advice from this site). It's free for sixty days and it's not anything to do with cloud computing that various cunningly disguised companies keep trying to push on here (Personally I wouldn't touch cloud computing with somebody else's bargepole).
Hope that this helps or at least prompts some advice from someone who uses instant.
cheers,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Hi Shamus - thank you for your reply. Our process here means I have to do very little debt chasing - I haven't actually used the aged analysis in Sage! I appreciate your look at alternatives, but if I naively ploughed on with my plan, my question is simply would the process be legal (i.e. Correct representation of business in sage, Excel records of all invoices + all original invoices)?
There is no legal right or wrong software package to use. As long as the information that you have is correct, accurate and up to date and you keep copies of everything then you will be fine. I use excel spreadsheets for a couple of my clients
Mark - it is legal and makes sense to me. But, if you are interested in looking at a new system which is faster than Excel and allows you to book payments to customers give me a buzz. And, it can important bank statements which automatically does the bank reconciliation.
