I have started a new job mainly admin based but as I have some experience using Sage I have been asked to do the accounts for the business. To be fair it is a very small cleaning business and fairly new so I didn't think it would be much of an issue.
Trouble is I have no idea how to input the balances from the previous year and all I have is profit and loss and balance sheet and no trial balance. There is a bank and cash amount, some cleaning stock and some tax and capital on the balance sheet.
Please can someone explain to me how to do this? There is no way I will be able to get the trail balance, from what I can gather the bookkeeper left suddenly.
I don't want to ask too many questions or for it to appear that I don't know what I am doing
Sorry I dont know your name as you have omitted it from the profile and not signed off with any - how about popping one on, even if its only a first name?
Welcome to the forum.
We usually ask newbies to do an short intro, background/how long a bookkeeper/do you have your own bookkeeping business or work for an Accountant or a company/how far you are with your studies/what qualification you are studying/what prof body you are with? Not too much, just helps get to know you and pitch any answers.
Where have the P&L and Balance sheet come from? Another piece of software they already use? Or somewhere else?
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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
So sorry, my name is Jade and as I am in work I was in a bit of a rush when I posted. I am working as an administrator for a small business and was told it would just be data entry on Sage but would appreciate some help starting.
It is literally a print out from their filing cabinet.
I will update my details when I get home later and sorry if I appeared bad mannered.
Hi Jade
Dont worry, can almost hear the worry in your message. Deep breaths - dont panic.
So - there is NOTHING in sage at all at the moment? You are having to set the whole thing up from scratch?
You will need to be able to find out what what the balances in any customer/supplier accounts are so if you answer yes to the above two questions then you absolutely need to find out what software they used before and how you get access to it (or manual books if thats how they did it, or indeed where any excel sheets are kept). Its a fair question for you to ask your new bosses, so dont think they will think you daft by asking.
What sage are you using?
Also - just to protect you, I take it that all your work on sage is as an employed person, rather than on a self employed basis?
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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 Joanne, using Sage Instant and yes literally from scratch. I am employed so no liability but they have said that because of the bookkeeper they want all the work done in house and then sent to their accountant when they appoint one.
I will have to bite the bullet and ask but I do think that there is little if any information and that the bookkeeper just gave them the profit and loss and balance sheet. It wasn't done in house and it sounds like there is bad feeling there.
There doesn't seem to be suppliers chasing money and I have emailed them for statements and the customers pay on a job by job basis so no credit.
Hi Jade
Sorry for delay - between customer calls at the moment.
One issue - is this a limited company? If so - then the bookkeeper has to hand over certain documents, regardless of the bad feeling, and that includes at the very least a Trial Balance.
But you can cobble together your own TB from just the P&L and Balance Sheet, although one issue is that often the software used before will group things together so you will not get the full split of all the detail. So the getting the TB really is the best method and is worth you perhaps trying to phone the previous bookkeeper rather than the aggrieved party. Someone needs to.
If that is absolutely no option then as I say - you can create your own TB, but what will be missing is some of the fine detail.
But first and sorry for this - another question - when was the year START and what is the month of the P&L etc you have? Also - do you have access to prior year final accounts? (guessing not and this might be their first year?)
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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
Thank you for coming back to me at all, no need to apologise. No it isn't a Limited Company and I will have to cobble together what I have, question is how. Do I date it as 31st March 16 which was their year end and how do I input it.
I have no idea who the bookkeeper was and rather not go down that route really.
Sorry for my vagueness, I bet you wished you hadn't replied now but I am feeling better knowing it isn't as simple as my employers anticipated.
I was hoping you were going to suggest that the date was pretty close to their last year end at which point I was going to suggest you just start again and re-input everything from the start of the year. If they are in their first year it might be worth them considering you doing that as to be honest the Accountant might need to anyway. Depends on the amount of time you have and the number of entries.
If not - then they are only going to get the bare bones of the information put into the system anyway, because for example in the P&L expenses list it will show a category of eg 'telephone, stationery and printing' but you will not have the breakdown of each of those accounts.
So here goes, if NONE of the above is an option:-
Create your own Trial balance from the profit and loss and balance sheet. The figure you need to ignore is the final profit figure in the P&L, all the rest - sling into a spreadsheet, check, check again and ensure that it all balances.
When you enter them, you would normally enter the debtors and creditors first and split out per the relevant customers and suppliers so their individual accounts agree. No customer accounts makes life so much easier. For the creditors - I would suggest you go to each of the known suppliers and not just get the statements as they are now, but ask for full activity logs and balances per their books as at 31st March - these figures across all the suppliers should (in theory) match the balance sheet figure you have.
When you have all that, the next thing is then to look at the bank and see if you can agree the figures ie do a Bank rec to 31 March, keeping a note of the cheques not yet put through at that date and the payins not yet showing on the Bank statement.
When you are ready to enter the information, do so using the LAST working day of the year end/period.
Prep is the key. Then taking regular backups, double backups and making they work is also key. Set up the chart of accounts you want to run/back it up. Set up your suppliers/back it up. You get the drift. So if you get stuck or make a mess you dont end up re-keying a huge pile of stuff.
HTH
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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
I feel your pain. That's exactly how I started my bookkeeping career. Company changed to Ltd, accountant didn't have a clue about Ltds and they moved to a chartered accountant. To save costs the new accountant suggested we do our own bookkeeping so I was given a copy of Sage Instant and told to get on with it!
I did, thoroughly enjoyed it but had the blessing of a very approachable accountant who helped me quite a bit. By the sounds of it the company you work for doesn't have an accountant though.
They being a sole trader simplifies things a bit, follow Joanne's advice and if you get stuck with anything, don't be afraid to ask.
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John
Any advice given is for general guidance and professional advice should be sought applicable to your circumstances.
Thank you so, so much, I have had a look at the Sage link and it seems to make sense. I will ask my employers whether they want do a skeleton entry or to start again from scratch. At least I have the backup info in case they complain.
If I get stuck, which I do anticipate, I will be back. You have been so helpful and really steadied my nerves.
Hello there, think I am just about sorted except I stupidly used the opening balance button on the bank so now I have a small amount in suspense and as I haven't got any debtors I don't know how to clear it and I am going round in circles. Can I post it to sales or capital?
Hi Jade
There are two options. I would normally suggest that if you don't know if the balance relates to sales, or capital then leave ot for the Acountant to sort at the end of the year. Never guess, as it might belong to purchase, expenses, drawings, who knows.
But, in this case, I would ask-when you use the op bal option for the Bank, what was the figure you put in there? Where was it from? Did you just stick one in there to get past the page you were on? Need more info here really, before a solution can be suggested.
Just s a thought, following my back up suggestions, why not just restore and do that part again?
__________________
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
It was £4293, I took the figure from the bank statement but yes you are right I will just do a restore (common sense seems to have evaded me this last week).
