Just joined the forum and need a bit of advice..... I have worked on sage for the last 20 years for a manufacturing firm, where I was used to customer accounts and doing up to 30 invoices monthly on 30 day accounts. Now I am working for a retail company and unfortunately the books and paperwork have no systems in place, the sales procedures are totally different. I could do with some advice on how to enter the sales and payments?? Am I best to put the infomation onto spreadsheets then enter them as monthly amounts?
When you say retail, what forms of documentation do you have? and also what routes to market do you have?
What type of retail business is it? Till rolls? Internet Sales reports from a merchant account such as SagePay? Is the company VAT registered? I would assume so for now. Cash Sales? Credit/Debit Card payments etc... How are the payments banked? Are the retail sales uk, EC, or outside EC?
spreadsheets can help as long as you have the back up paperwork to show your workings whether it be from till rolls, bank statement receipts, merchant account reports.
I actually do some work for a client who does both retail and wholesale and we have 2 different processes for recording the sales. they sell to UK, EC and non EC.
If you can provide a little more information I can give you a little more help.
Thanks for your reply!! They are showroom sales (fireplace retail sales) recorded by invoices sales paid by cash, cheque and credit/debit card payments. Mostly deposits are paid then balance paid when goods are delivered. The customers are one offs and not repeat sales.
Ok, this shouldn't be too hard to sort out, but it does mean you will have to put procedures in place. Not only for your benefit but also for the benefit of the business involved.
The way they are paid isnt too much of a hassle as you have the control accounts in sage already. bank and cash. Credit card maybe a pain though as sometimes a payment into the bank will contain more than one credit card transaction.
Is there anyway you can match the monies paid to any of the paperwork you have? The idea of this is that you will be loading the invoices raised on sage matching the payments against it. pretty much like you were doing on the 30 day invoices.
Every invoiced raised should be filed in a folder in numerical order which should allow you to file per month as well. dont matter too much if you cant put in months but must be in order. Every invoice raised should be loaded onto sage, but I would only use 3 customer accounts. 1 for cheques and debit card, 1 for cash and 1 for credit card. one problem with this is that they may pay the final balance by a different method. I would make sure you put the customers name in the invoice description so you can easily match it.
Now if you have a lot of invoices and want to save time, you can list each invoice on a spreadsheet providing, date, invoice number, net amount,vat and gross. you can then post this spreadsheet as an invoice for a whole month and then match the cash or cheques etc...against it. I would then file a copy of the spreadsheet in the sales invoice folder for that month or for the number of invoices loaded.
However this may lead to discrepancies and the loss of a decent aged debtors report.
Obviously all monies paid by chq, debit/credit card should go into the bank so this is easily recorded. The Cash however maybe kept for petty cash or banked on a regular basis. if this is the case I would have a bank account in sage for cash setup (can use the standard petty cash if need be) so you can record the cash movement efficiently.
Overall it just means a little more work than the normal 30day account types, but the overall process is the same.
I hope that makes it a little easier. its difficult to explain in writing and this is easier to explain and show rather than write down instruction.
What sort of volume of invoices and transactions do you have each month? 20?,50? 100?
Up to press I have been listing monthly invoices onto a spreadsheet and entering onto sage as a total monthly amount, and then posting payments to them. Was unsure if there was an easier way or if the way I was logging them was ok. Feel a lot better about it now with your advice and will keep a keen eye on reconciling them with payments as you stated.
Thanks for your advice it has given me the confidence to deal with this now.
