Please excuse my stupidity...I was after some clarification as I've confused myself (again!).
I have recently (3 months) started doing the books for a sole trader friend of mine, I input purchases onto sage, enter bank receipts & payments and complete the VAT return. He previously used a bookkeeper who he thought was an accountant (but thats another story...) so I have convinced him to now get himself an accountant for the year end / SA return as I do think he will benefit from it.
He dropped the files / computer in earlier and explained he hadn't processed his sales invoices since the beginning of April as he thought it might mess up the year end. Looking at Sage I can see the invoices in the invoice list, but he hasn't posted them to the customer accounts.
The accountant is having the files/computer next week to process year end.
Questions:
1. I have entered all the purchase invoices (up to date) - some in the new financial year - I assumed this would be OK as when she processes the year end it will just take the information from the correct period and leave the current period alone - is this correct, or should I not have done this?
2. Can I / Should I post the sales invoices to the customer accounts (i.e was he correct not to post them?) - again, I assume (wrongly?) that when year end is processed it will only take the figures from the correct financial year?
(If I do need to post these from the Invoice list to Customer accounts how do I do this on sage?)
The reason I need to post them is I can't print out his Debtors reports as there are no outstanding balances in the customer accounts...as he hasn't posted them there yet!!
3. How far would an accountant expect me to take the books to - I assume I enter the accruals / prepayments or do they prefer to do this?
Apologies for all of the questions - I think I am doing the right thing but then have a sudden confidence crisis and need to ask rather than do it all wrong!
Liz It's ok to process subsequent year transactions prior to doing a yearend. If not there would be a huge backlog the time it takes for some accountants to 'do' the final a/cs.
Wrt posting the sales invoices. You need to be in the invoicing module and click on the 'update' icon
to be honest, you would not be expected to do prepayments and accruals. However it would make the accountants job much easier if you did so. similar if you provided a bank rec, list of fixed assets, list of afterdate sales and purchase invoices if there are any, VAT rec, Payroll Rec and perhaps some analysis of some profit & loss Items such as miscellaneous, repairs and renewals.
Best thing to do is to speak to the accountant and find out exactly what they want you to do. If your not comfortable doing something, then dont worry, the accountant will ask you if they have any queries or need further information.
with regards to the sales invoices, if you are posting via the invoice list facility, as stardoe says, you will have to highlight (by clicking each one) all the invoices and the right click and click "update" this will then enter them into the sales ledger and accounts accordingly. It will also give you the option to reveiw or print a list of invoices updated. I personally just preview and close it down, but if you wish you can print it off each month and put it in the sales invoice folder if you keep one.
regarding purchase invoices you can post in the new year as normal and it wont affect the figures when you do the year end procedure.
Just one last thing, when you do the year end procedure, make sure you backup before you do it and backup after you do it. Give the accountant both backups as well.
