Although I've not been very active on the forums I've learned such a lot from reading the posts and am grateful to everyone who posts and keeps this forum alive.
I have searched for an answer to my problem and although I've found a few suggestions nothing is really helping so thought I'd post to explain my query and see if anyone has any bright ideas.
Basically, whilst I study I've taken a part-time post as an admin/finance assistant. I started on Monday and their Sage (latest version) is a total mess. I was going to catch up on the Bank Rec but the Opening Balance didn't match with anything so I looked at the .pdf's in the bank history tab and it says the bank was last reconciled to 31Jan but the Closing Balance is different to the current Opening Balance (incidentally the closing reconciled balance is also different from the actual bank balance so goodness knows what the previous guy was doing). I've gone back and the last agreeing balance seems to be 30Nov last year.
I'm guessing that something has been deleted/changed since the last correct rec - does that seem like a reasonable assumption?
I've printed all the .pdfs of the reconciliations performed and found a report called "Retrospective Bank Reconciliation" - having spent this afternoon working my way through trying to match I'm beginning to think I'm checking like with like so quit as I wasn't finding anything.
I've also searched for deleted transactions between 30Nov & 31Jan and there are over 80!!! I was praying the total of the deleted transactions would equal the difference, alas not.
I know it won't be a quick fix and the boss knows Sage is a mess (part of the reason I got the job I think) so I don't feel pressured into giving an instant result but I do want to prove myself so am keen to find a resolve asap.
They have a VAT quarter to end Mar which needs reporting to HMRC very soon and I want it to be accurate so does anyone have any ideas how I can unravel this mess? Any report or search I'm missing here that would help?
Well thats another half day lost trying to solve this nightmare :(
I know I posted late last night and not everyone can read the forum during the day but early 50 people have viewed and not one reply. Anyone? Please? I'm going crazy and beginning to feel like a total failure. I MUST be missing something but I can't see the wood for the trees.
this isn't an answer to your question but a slight defence of the site.
There is a large contingent of people who read the site but do not post.
Of those that do post there is a split between those who use Sage and those like myself who don't (sometimes I don't even read posts that have Sage in the title).
Of those I can think of a few who could answer your problem and I have seen non of them on the site today.
The general site guidance is to give posts 48 hours to be answered although for the most part I would say that most posts are answered within two hours of posting.
One of those that I am thinking of invariably logs into the site most evenings so fingers crossed you will get a response then.
Sorry that I'm no help to you in this instance and hope that your issue is resolved either on or off site soon.
kind regards,
Shaun.
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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.
If the bank reconciled at the end of November, you'll need to print the Sage bank activity from that point (or export it to Excel). You can then go through the bank statements from 1 December onwards and reconcile it to the Sage report (and the unreconciled items on the November bank reconciliation report). In theory, you'll be able to see the transactions that have been posted incorrectly on Sage or those that haven't been posted at all. You can then make the appropriate adjustments.
Another way would be to go into corrections and edit each transaction that had been bank reconciled after November. You could untick the 'bank reconciled on' box for each transaction so that you could then redo the bank reconciliation since November on Sage. If there have been a lot of transactions since November, the first method would probably be quicker.
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Pearce & Co - Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser
I agree with Robert. The only way to sort out this mess is to go through it methodically, ticking off transactions as you go. I am very much old school and always print off the nominal bank activity report for the period I am reconciling and go through it physically ticking off transactions against the bank statement.
As Robert said, make sure you take account of any unreconciled transactions from November.
I'm a Sage user (please don't egg/flour me, other forum non-sage users!) and can only advise you follow the comments already given here which is to print the reports and methodically tick off transaction by transaction matching to the bank statement. You mentioned that you started doing this and stopped but I'm sure if you go back to it 'something' will turn up (in my experience, it usually does towards the end!)
On a separate note, you can 'work backwards' in the bank rec in Sage. You can start, for example, with today's closing bank statement balance and reconcile a weeks worth and work back a week at a time until you come to a problem. That may point you in the direction/month where the problem lies then at least you know where/which month to look.
Thanks guys, I was pretty annoyed at myself for not getting to the root to the problem in what I though was a reasonable time. I just thought I was being too slow but maybe I'm being too hard on myself. I took a break from it for a few hours whilst I worked on something else so maybe a fresh set of eyes in the morning will help the offending transactions show up.
