Hello. I am a novice using Sage Instant Accounts. There is an amount outstanding on a telephone supplier account from last year presumably from a mistake I made as we definitely do not owe them anything. As Sage will not allow corrections for last year I would be very grateful if anyone could tell me how to deal with this as we no longer use that supplier and I need to balance the books?
Is it a significant amount? If so, have last years accounts been completed?
Is the business VAT registered? If so, on the normal system, Cash Accounting, or some other scheme?
I'd write out a "credit note" on a piece of plain paper dated today, and include an explanation of what you've done and why, and post it as you would a credit note from the supplier. Then you have a document to file with your other credit notes. If you can trace where the error is, I'd attach a copy of the invoice(s) you got wrong, and make sure the VAT was adjusted accordingly, but that might depend on what VAT scheme you're on. Post a purchase payment of £0 to allocate the credit to the outstanding balance.
If it's significant, and last years accounts haven't been completed, your "credit note" could be accrued for. It will be reversed on the first day of the new accounting year, so date your "credit note" on that date, so the entries cancel each other out in the same month.
You'll then have a proper documented audit trail, which is much better than what some people would do, that I won't encourage you to try!!!!
Thank you very much for your help, John. It was a duplicate entry for £17.21 and dated 28 February 2013 so the year end has been done. The business is VAT registered normally as far as I know. The accountants and director have so far dealt with the VAT and I am going to have to get my head round balancing and reconciling that so that I can try and get a useful accurate report out next time in order to save the director work. I have therefore just raised a credit note as you kindly suggested.
If it's a duplicate entry, I'd just use a photocopy of the original invoice, and write on it what happened, with a reference back to the original.
As I hinted in my original reply, I've known people to just post whatever entries they could to make it balance, without documenting them, so there are unsupported entries in Sage. It's a nightmare when you come across another entry that has been misposted, that when put right would sort out the problem, and you have to wade through loads of undocumented corrections, and corrections to corrections, and reversals of corrections to corrections...........! It's so much simpler to do it properly and provide a good audit trail. You may think you'll remember what you've done so it's not a problem, but try thinking back to something you did a year ago when you're trying to sort out the mess!
