I have a small job for a landlord. Client supplies income and expenditure on a property by property basis each year to the Accountant for him to finish everything else off. Has asked me to do the income/expend split as he has just had no time (not that I have really!)
So Ive downloaded VT transaction to give it a whirl.
I receive a statement of account from the lettings agency and wondered the best way to complete the entries.
Is there a way I can key the statement as an 'i/v' to show the amounts due in (rents) as well as the amounts out for fees? (Have sage i/v and Credit note options as my mindset so am probably not thinking enough....or too much!)
Or - thinking of going for Bank receipts per the statement, with a payment payment for the deductions. Is there a way VT will group this as one amount from the Bank statement perspective or should I annotate it somehow to show it relates to the same statement (eg statement date in the ? I have set up departments for the income to show per property and management fees just allocated to that cost code, but any other deductions also split via the departments.
HELP please
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
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.
yes, the P&L that you produce when you have departments will have on worksheet for each department, one worksheet for entries not in a specific department and one worksheet that brings it all together.
I would go for the entering invoices approach (your first suggestion).
For Invoices you want the SIN and PIN buttons (use the SIN button that doesn't have a line under it). The department appears on each line entry of the invoice that you are entering.
Hope that I'm answering the question that you are asking.
__________________
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.
Hi Shaun
Thanks - the worksheets info is great so Im on the right lines with that part.
I prefer to enter the invoices.
Maybe best if ask another question before I explain more fully - In sage if I want to try something Ive not done before to see where it impacts I do a backup, try it out and if it doesnt work just do a restore - so can I do that in VT?
So - I have a statement from the letting agent which shows £3047.10 received from say 6 tenants. Then a list of deductions, with the net balance due to the landlord - which obviously then matches what has been received into the bank.
In sage (sorry to keep saying that) I would enter the statement from the letting agent as follows:-
As a customer ie sales invoice - showing the gross total received in from the tenants, split to the correct departments to show the rent for each property.
then a credit note representing the deductions, split to correct departments and costs costs to show expenses per property or just the bog standard management fees.
Then when I come to allocate the Bank receipt I can allocate the net to both the invoice and credit note at the same time.
So - what is the best way in VT? Or do you have the lettings agent as a supplier and a customer and start doing contras (trying to avoid it as thats just extra work!!)?
(My initial Q was around if I key a pile of entries in the Bank can the Bank be made to 'group' these transactions so they all are allocated to the right departments or costs codes but they only show as ONE entry on the Bank activity list? Sage has the option to group or not to group!)
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Im merrily keying now, having decided to set up the invoices as I do in sage.
Loving the intuitive pre-filling it does - thats actually better than sage so far.
Only problem Ive hit is if I state departments are to be cost analysed I cant work out what to do if part of the costs are not to be analysed and the rest are, other than keying the items as separate lines on the invoice and switching the ability to analyse on and off. Probably not the best way to do it, but Im all for ....as long as it gets to where I want to be, I dont care how I got there kinda attitude.
Would be great if I actually had time to play around before needing to use it, but loving the reports it produces and thats all Im after!
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Only problem Ive hit is if I state departments are to be cost analysed I cant work out what to do if part of the costs are not to be analysed and the rest are, other than keying the items as separate lines on the invoice and switching the ability to analyse on and off. That doesnt ruddy well work!
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Hi Shaun Thanks - the worksheets info is great so Im on the right lines with that part.
I prefer to enter the invoices.
Maybe best if ask another question before I explain more fully - In sage if I want to try something Ive not done before to see where it impacts I do a backup, try it out and if it doesnt work just do a restore - so can I do that in VT?
Just copy the .vtr file to somewhere else. I generally have a few play companies to try different things on.
Keep all of your .vtr files in one place periodically copy the whole lot to new backup folders. i.e. VTR Backups YYYYMMDD (where YYYYMMDD is the year month and day. In that format your backuyp folders appear in sequence
So - I have a statement from the letting agent which shows £3047.10 received from say 6 tenants. Then a list of deductions, with the net balance due to the landlord - which obviously then matches what has been received into the bank.
In sage (sorry to keep saying that) I would enter the statement from the letting agent as follows:-
As a customer ie sales invoice - showing the gross total received in from the tenants, split to the correct departments to show the rent for each property. then a credit note representing the deductions, split to correct departments and costs costs to show expenses per property or just the bog standard management fees.
Then when I come to allocate the Bank receipt I can allocate the net to both the invoice and credit note at the same time.
So - what is the best way in VT? Or do you have the lettings agent as a supplier and a customer and start doing contras (trying to avoid it as thats just extra work!!)?
(My initial Q was around if I key a pile of entries in the Bank can the Bank be made to 'group' these transactions so they all are allocated to the right departments or costs codes but they only show as ONE entry on the Bank activity list? Sage has the option to group or not to group!)
So the basic scenario is that you have an amount that was received by the agent.
The agent then deducts their expenses, is that broken down by property?
The remainder is transfered to your client.
So, recording that you would divide the agents income by property (creating a sales invoice for each property)
You would allocate the agents costs by property (creating a purchase invoice for each property)
You journal (as you say, contra) the expenses against income (non cash transactions. You have already recorded the income and the expense so everything in the P&L's is fine).
The remainder should match the amount received from the agent into the bank.
If you create a credit note would that not throw the financial statements as it effectively reduces income so both income and expenses would be understated?
Journaling the expenses is extra work but then you don't need to create credit notes so swings and roundabouts.
My appologies if I have misunderstood the scenario.
__________________
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.
Only problem Ive hit is if I state departments are to be cost analysed I cant work out what to do if part of the costs are not to be analysed
Create a generic cost code to put elements to that you do not want to analyse by property.
I have a 0000General code that I use as a catch all for anything that I don't want allocated to specific jobs
__________________
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.
Just copy the .vtr file to somewhere else. I generally have a few play companies to try different things on. I saved with 'backup' added currently on backup v2......only for now! Looks like I gonna have to restore to the first anywhere cos of the damned department codes. There was I thinking I was winning, lol
So the basic scenario is that you have an amount that was received by the agent. Yep
The agent then deducts their expenses, is that broken down by property? Absolutely, apart from the management fee which is just a lump sum (and one I wont be splitting per property)
The remainder is transfered to your client. Yes
So, recording that you would divide the agents income by property (creating a sales invoice for each property) I created one invoice per statement, with several lines of data, each departmented out to a property, rather than separate invoices. Am I being bad?!!
You would allocate the agents costs by property (creating a purchase invoice for each property) see below
You journal (as you say, contra) the expenses against income (non cash transactions. You have already recorded the income and the expense so everything in the P&L's is fine). Hmmmm! Im assuming there isnt a 'contra' process option then. Doesnt some software make you lazy!!
The remainder should match the amount received from the agent into the bank.
If you create a credit note would that not throw the financial statements as it effectively reduces income so both income and expenses would be understated? Oh I dont credit note an income code, but key the credit note to an expenses code
Journaling the expenses is extra work but then you don't need to create credit notes so swings and roundabouts.
My appologies if I have misunderstood the scenario.
Does that make sense?
Thanks loads - will treat my backup v2 as a trial run, which was great up to hitting the departmental issue.
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Only problem Ive hit is if I state departments are to be cost analysed I cant work out what to do if part of the costs are not to be analysed
Create a generic cost code to put elements to that you do not want to analyse by property.
I have a 0000General code that I use as a catch all for anything that I don't want allocated to specific jobs
Hi Shaun
I set up a 'no property' code, but there was also a generic system one called 'no department' from before I set up the departments, which meant I was reporting all the general ones across two reporting tabs in the P&L.
Its these sorts of hints which are pure gold when you are using such software, but ones you need to know before you start. Good lesson for round two though.
You might have gotten me over to the dark side, at least on the software front!
Thanks for your help - you do know that you might not get any peace now though!
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
One of the early issues that I had with VT was that there are generally a few different ways of doing the same thing so I was always wondering whether I was doing it correctly.
The answer of course is that if the double entry has ended up exactly as it should be then you've done it correctly no matter how you got there.
So, if it works then its right... But there may still be some faster or just better ways to use the software to do the same thing.
Have fun with it.
__________________
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.
