Subsidiary Ledger Help

TraceyD06

Hi there,
I have just started a new job and am just starting to get my head around their software.
They use sage for the nominal ledger, a access based program to keep the sales ledger, and they do not keep a purchase ledger. From their point of view this works as they wrote the program for the sales ledger as it has buttons to press to send emails to clients to chase for money, most of their purchases are made online at the time of purchase and they are on the cash accounting scheme so having no invoices in sage does not affect the VAT return. In addition, I have never used sage and so are not familiar with the finer points of it.
It just does not feel right to me that they do not have sales & purchase ledger set up in Sage. I have not been there long enough yet to make any changes but would like to ask some of you more experiences Sage users what would be the benefits of having sales & purchase ledgers in sage. Not the obvious ones, but the ones I may not have thought of being a new user.
Many thanks,
Tracey

A-Vic

Am far from an expert but one of the major beneifits of having sales and purchase leadger on sage is you can keep a track of what has been paid and outstanding (i know pretty basic) say for instance you purchases goods for resale and make a incorrect payment and know that it is paid it would be easier to trace. Also it definatley helps at year end to run off accounts and tb

Vonni

So do I assume that you post from their sales ledger sheet on a weekly or monthly basis to Sage nominal using only the debtors control account and then check the o/s balance back to their 'other system'?

I'm not sure what version of Sage you have but on our's there is the facility of emailing invoices/statements to customers and remittance advices to suppliers.

What a pain when you've got such excellent software as Sage - and if you set up Sage with 'cash accounting' vat module ticked you would have automatic calculation of VAT returns too.

Hopefully you can soon get your feet under the table and point out the benefits of using the sales & purchase ledgers, even though they're on cash accounting you still need to be aware of your assets and liabilities - and you should always keep a VAT reconciliation when using cash accounting.

Good Luck

Psyche

They probably do not have enough purchase transactions to merit spending the money for the Sage purchase ledger module, and as they have their own sales ledger system they have not paid for the sales ledger module either. When arguing for the use of these modules you would have to weigh the benefits against the cost.

coojee

Psyche - The purchase and sales ledger modules are a standard part of Sage, they all come with it. I think you're thinking of SOP and POP, these are extra's and a lot of companies don't bother with them.

Tracy D06 - If I were you I'd definately try and convince them to move everything to Sage, otherwise you're just doubling up your work, having to enter the sales on the bespoke system and then again into Sage. Just out of interest, how do they enter the sales and sales receipts in Sage? Do they do a monthly journal or individual invoices? What about the sales receipts? How do these get into the bank? Or do they enter the sales as and when they're received (like a cash sale) and then journal in the debtors? It all sounds horrendous from an end of year point of view and a bit of a mess for the accountants to have to sort out as well.

coojee