I have accquired a new client who has 4 branches/depots. They are currently running Sage and want to be able to see the individual running costs for each branch from general expenses, utilities to wages.
Their previous bookkeeper set up the 4 branches expenses in the purchase section of Sage ie 5000 naming them.... Expenses, Accreditation Costs, Uniforms, Outdoor Costs, CRB Checks, Rent & Rates, Stationery, Subsistence and Wages. Starting from NC5000 to 5036 ! (9 nominals per branch).
Currently, when a P&L report is run all these entries come under purchases which of course is not showing a true reflection of the companies position.
My questions is, how do I sort this out ?? At the moment the only thing I can think of is perhaps setting up for example to show the individual costs of rent for each branch by inserting new nominal codes ie 7100 Rent Branch A, 7101 Rent Branch b, 7102 Rent Branch C etc., and do the same for the other overheads in the appropriate nominals !
I can see why she set it up in the 5000 range but surely things like Rent, stationery, Wages etc should be under the appropriate nom codes, cause technically Rent and Rates are not a purchase to the company and therefore should not be under the 5000 range.
I think what you are saying should work, listing Branch A-D with the rent being in the 7101 nom code and the others in the appropriate nom codes but again labelling them Branch A-D. At least when you rung the reports you can see what has been spent per branch and what on.
I'm sure someone else will be on here later. Sheila is an expert on Sage
Thanks for that, just needed some reassurance that I was on the right lines.
I know that if I go in and change the nominals to reflect the branches in the appropriate nominal list such as rent then set up similar for the utilities etc., when I run the P & L report those overheads will no be separated into the various branches but shown as a total for the Company.
I suppose the only other option would be to set up an excel spreadsheet for each branch to run alongside Sage to show the actual expenditure per branch. Running a nominal report periodically to ensure said figures match my excel sheets !
You don't say which version of Sage you have. I'm afraid I only know about Sage 50 Accounts (through studying Sage Workbooks) so can't speak for Instant Accounts etc.
In Sage 50 Accounts, there is a facility to set up Departments for just this sort of scenario. You define your departments (can have up to 1000) and every transaction is allocated to one of these departments. Defaults are set up to save having to select a department every time. You then only need the one set of nominal expense accounts. You can also assign budgets at a department level. You can produce P+L/BS/VAT reports etc all analysed by department, so easy!
Can't think why the previous bookkeeper used purchases nominal codes for overheads etc, have to assume they didn't understand what they were doing or were in a hell of a rush. It is not the recommended way to go with Sage. You CAN make your P+L etc work this way but it requires tweaks to your chart of accounts - you can do this now to fix your current set up.
You can't delete nominal codes once they are in use. However, just after you run Year End, when all P+L balances are cleared to zero, you can delete the rogue accounts in the Purchases range, set up new ones in the correct ranges and start using them.
To summarise: - tweak your chart of accounts now to fix your P+L reporting etc - think about using Depatments if you have them, or upgrade if you want them - plan to sort out your nominal structure and chart of accounts just after running next year end.
Hope this is useful for you, be happy to help further if I can, just ask.
Be interesting to hear from practitioners with experience of dealing with this sort of situation...
I would go with departments then you can run a departmental analysis for all your expenses, this will show your expenses for each branch. This is what we have set up at work and seems to work well.
Oh and this is on Sage 2010.
-- Edited by Rhianrach on Sunday 26th of September 2010 11:52:05 AM
Instant V12 does have departments. They are found in Settings, Configuration, Departments. When you create them you do not Save them but Apply them and then close. What you need to do is set up each of the branches as a department 1, 2, 3, 4 and name them.
Sage has "ranges" which correspond to Trading, P & L and Balance Sheet in the COA.
The 5000 range is designated for purchase items and goes to into the Trading A/C. Expense items for the P & L are in the 7000 range with depreciation, bad debts and misc costs in the 8000. Balance Sheet items are in the 00 to 3999 range split between fixed assets, current assets, current and long term liabilities and sales in the 4000 range.
Whilst in Instant you can't run off departmental P&Ls you can run off nominal reports and from these extract a departmental P&L.
I run Sage Instants 12 for a client, and although I don't need to do departments for his business as there are no branches its useful to know these things for the future.
