Some quick and easy steps for getting ready to use Sage Accounting.
Description
Some steps on how to get the most from Sage Accounting straight away.
This explains how to:
- Find your way around
- Check your business details
- Set up your financial year and VAT
- Check your Chart of Accounts
Resolution
When you first sign in, you'll need to provide some basic details about your business, like its name and VAT registration status.
Your Business Name is the one you entered when you first signed up. If you need to change this, please email us from the owner's email address for your Sage account.
Check your business details
- From Settings, and Business Settings, then About your business.
- Check your address is correct. This is the address we print on any sales documents that you send to your customers. If you are a limited company and your registered address is different, enter this further down the page.
- Check your Business type is correct.
If your business is a limited company or limited liability partnership (LLP) and your business trading address is different to the address registered with the Companies Registration Office:
Set your financial year
This makes sure you can run reports and view transactions that reflect your business year.
From Settings, choose Business Settings.
From the Financial settings section, choose Accounting dates and VAT.
Enter the last day of your financial year as the Year End Date. If you're not sure you can come back and change this later, even after entering transactions.
Set your lockdown date
Set a lockdown date to stop anyone from accidentally entering or changing transactions for a previous financial year.
As the year-end approaches, this feature is valuable because it prevents the addition of new transactions after you've generated your end-of-year reports.
For example, if your financial year ends on 31 December, enter 31 December as the Year End Lockdown date. You can then only enter new transactions from 1 January onwards.
Set your start date
This is the date you want to start entering transactions from. Once set, you can't enter transactions, apart from opening balances before this date.
Once set, we automatically set opening balances for the day before this date.
For example, if the start date is 1 April, your opening balances must have a date of 31 March or earlier.
Set up VAT
Make sure to enter your VAT registration number and select the correct VAT scheme if you're registered for VAT.
- From Settings, Business Settings, then Accounting Dates & VAT.
- In the VAT Details section, check the following:
VAT scheme - Check you have selected the correct scheme
Submission frequency - Choose how often you submit a VAT Return to the Revenue. This depends on how you registered with the Revenue
VAT number - Your VAT registration number
Want to know more about VAT, read VAT in Sage Accounting.
When you record transactions like money coming into and out of your business, you'll want to categorise your transactions so you know what you're spending money on. For example, when you buy printer paper for the office, you choose the Office supplies category. This way you track your total spending on office supplies over a period.
In Sage Accounting, we call all these categories ledger accounts, and the complete list is known as the chart of accounts.
We set up a common chart of accounts when we first started your business. You can continue to use our defaults or set up your own to suit your business.
Already have a chart of accounts?
To save time, you can import a chart of accounts. You can only do this with a new business, before entering any transactions.
If you want to import your chart of accounts, read Import your chart of accounts.
Check the chart of accounts
- From Settings, choose Business Settings.
- From the Financial Settings section, choose Chart of Accounts.
If you want to know more about the chart of accounts, read the Chart of Accounts introduction.
TIP: You may see ledger accounts referred to as nominal codes, category codes, or ledger codes instead of ledger accounts. Don't worry, they all mean the same thing.
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