year end issue

[Jennajay]

Hi,

I am busy with checking everything before processing year end.

I have some queries -
1. We have 2 bank accounts - a current account and a credit card account.
The Current account recon is correct and balances for the year end, the Credit card account however doesn't.
I looked at the opening balance in the accounts and it does not match the actual bank statement I queried this discrepency with our previous accountant but to no avail - I have checked and I see this account is actually in our directors name - does that mean that we don't need to make sure that it balances and that I just need to make sure all the business transactions for the year have been posted correctly?
2. If there are other errors ie wrong allocation of accounts I can post these all post the year end correct? I just need to ensure that all the documents are correct for the year Ie Tax invoices/ credit notes?
The only reason I say this is we took the accounts away from our previous accountant a few months ago so the months where she handled them I would need to look through every transaction one by one to check for adjustments, this could take quite a while, so i would like to do the year end so that we can carry on with our normal accounting while scrutinising the other months

[Dave A]

What accounting software are you using, Jennajay?

[Jennajay]

What accounting software are you using, Jennajay?

Pastel

[Dave A]

OK, I'll resist suggesting using Quickbooks (where all this EOFY / period close / balance brought forward malarky disappears). And you probably need to keep in mind I tend to prioritise what works above what you're supposed to do in terms of doctrine.

My thought is have a company file for the last financial year and one for this financial year. That way if you make any adjustments in the last financial year that affect the opening balances for this year, you just need to post a batch of the required adjusting journal entries in the company file for this year.

[Neville Bailey]

You can post prior year journals after running the year-end, and the opening balances of the new year will adjust accordingly. However, you cannot process documents, such as invoices and credit notes, in the prior year.

[Jennajay]

Thank you both.

Dave I totally agree with you, been looking into Quickbooks especially since we only have Macs at our studios and Im currently having to run parralels in order to run pastel.
But it seems like such a mission to move over.

Neville - So before I run the year end I would basically just need to ensure all the documents I need posted are correct and recorded?
I was looking through the invoices and noticed that Some of them which are tax exempt have a pesky "N" under tax exempt even though the customer is set up with a forced tax type of exempt although these all date back to before I took over so I probably edited the company and these invoices are before editing their tax type to tax exempt.

How do I correct these errors?
They have NOT been recorded on the VAT 201 under exempt, the totals of these invoices are simply ommited - oh how i love incompetent 'accountants' - would I need to refile these VAT201's with the totals of tax exempt amounts actually filled in. (luckily there are only 2 periods with these errors) but it will have an effect on the recon between total sales and VAT201 totals that is now needed by SARS correct?

Any suggestions on a way forward?

[Neville Bailey]

Neville - So before I run the year end I would basically just need to ensure all the documents I need posted are correct and recorded?

Quite correct.

I was looking through the invoices and noticed that Some of them which are tax exempt have a pesky "N" under tax exempt even though the customer is set up with a forced tax type of exempt although these all date back to before I took over so I probably edited the company and these invoices are before editing their tax type to tax exempt.

That can be easily remedied with a Forms Designer edit to remove that "pesky N" from the form layout.