Journals - Sage

ameliah21

I have just started a new job and am dealing with all of the accounts side of things for the business which I have never done before and as a small business there is nobody else here who can help me.
It is nearing the time of monthly management accounts - and I don't really understand journals. It's not just salary journals, but prepayments, accruals, depreciation etc. I don't understand where I get the figures from to create these journals. Please could someone help me?!!
Thanks

CeeJaySix

That's quite a broad brush question, so a broad brush answer:

1. Prepayments. Things you have paid for but not yet had the benefit from eg. telephone line rental paid in advance, insurance, subscriptions, rent. These will likely remain consistent month to month, and you only need to post the movement in the prepayment, not the total amount; for an increase in prepayment, this would be dr prepayments cr relevant expense. For longer-than-monthly intervals (eg. an annual insurance policy) you will need to add the full amount to prepayments (dr prepayments cr expense) at the time of purchase and reduce the prepayment month on month as the term reduces - dr expense cr prepayments.

2. Accruals. Things you have had the benefit of but not yet paid for eg. telephone call charges, accountancy fees, light heat and power. May need to be estimated if you have not yet had the invoice for the period in question. Dr expense cr accruals. Again you only need to post the movement, many will remain consistent month on month. You may also have monthly accruals for annual bills - eg. accruing £1,000/month (dr expense cr accruals) for the annual accountancy fees of £12,000; if you have paid any bills such as this, don't forget to reverse the accrual out (dr accrual cr expense).

Depreciation - amount will be dictated by the firm's depreciation policy on the various classes of fixed assets and the carrying value of those assets. Dr depreciation charge in the P&L and credit (depending on how your a/cs are set up) either depreciation charge for the year in the BS or accumulated depreciation in the BS (some firms show them separately and combine when rolling forward opening balances, others just lump it all in together).

Any more specific questions fire away, someone will be able to help.

suenew

Sage journal

If the previous person had set them up correctly you will find the prepayments & accruals in Nominal>Prepayments or Accruals. For depreciation go to> Modules>Fixed Assets to review.
Then run your month end by changing the program date to the month end date within Settings. Then Tools>period end>month end> then tick what you want to run and it will do it all for you.
Make sure you back up before starting. If you need help on how to set up Fixed assets, prepayments & accruals I can send a link. Hope that helps