Tips

Payroll

Correcting Employees wages once you have updated the wages

You might find that after you have updated the wages for the payroll run, new information comes to light and you need to re-run the payroll for that employee – examples could be a change to an Attachment of Earnings etc, missing overtime etc.

Solution

  1. Back up your data.
  2. On the Employee List, select the required employee(s).
  3. Click Tasks, then click Rollback.
  4. Click Next.
  5. Check the employee(s) on the list is the one(s) you want to rollback, then click Next.
  6. Select the earliest pay period that you want to remove.
  7. If you select the employee’s first pay period, the following message appears ‘You have selected the oldest update. Do you also want to clear the following information?’ with a list of information.
  8. Click No on the message. Only click Yes if you are certain you need to clear the values listed.
  9. Click Next then click Finish.
  10. Click OK.

You can now process your payroll again for the employee(s) that you have rolled back, including any statutory payments you have previously processed.

If you re-run pre-update reports these will only include the employee(s), you have rolled back.

Pension Details

If you have already submitted your pension data and the figures have changes, you will need to let your pension provider know.  You will need to contact your provider on how to make this amendment.

If you need help with rolling an employee(s) wage back or need any other help or advice with your payroll, please contact us on

We can also provide a remote access service where we can link into your computer to help you resolve your Sage Accounts or Payroll problems.

Sage 50 Accounts

Automatic contra entries

Sometimes you might have a customer who is also a supplier, and you want to offset customer and supplier invoices.  This is a contra entry.

You can not use Automatic Contra Entries if:

  • If you operate a VAT Cash Accounting scheme.
  • You need to offset customer or supplier transactions other than invoices. For example, customer credit notes (SC) with supplier credit notes (PC)
  • CIS transactions – you can post manual contra entries for the full value of CIS transactions only.
  • Non-base currency transaction.

Post manual contra entries – covered in next month’s newsletter.

Create a contra entry bank account.

  1. Go to Bank accounts, then select New.
  2. Enter the relevant details for the new bank account:

A/C Ref * The nominal code you want to use for the new bank account.

Note: If you are using Sage’s default nominal ledger structure, use a number within the range of 1200 to 1239.  These numbers are in the existing bank account range in the Chart of Accounts.  This ensures that the bank balances appear correctly on your Management reports.

Nominal Name Enter a description for the new bank account, for example, Contra Entries bank account.

A/C Type Select Cheque Account from the drop-down list.

No Bank Reconciliation If you do not want to run a bank reconciliation for this bank account, select this.

  1. Click Save then click

How to post the contra entry

  1. Go to Customers or Suppliers, and then select Contra Entries.
  2. Select the contra entry Bank A/C, then select the relevant A/C Ref for both the Sales Ledger and the Purchase Ledger.
  3. Select the invoices to offset against each other from both windows, then click OK.

If there is a mismatch in values, you are prompted to part contra the lowest account.

For example, a £120.00 contra entry offsets a £120 sales invoice, leaving £30 outstanding on a £150 purchase invoice.

  1. To confirm this, click Yes.

The contra entry posts an SR and a PP to the contra entry bank account.  The accounts are the value of the invoices, or the lessor value if applicable.

Reserve a contra entry

To reverse a contra entry, delete or reverse the transaction posted due to the contra entry.  To do this, identify the transaction and delete or reverse them as usual.

If you would like any help with creating a contra bank account and or doing contras or if you need any other help with your Sage 50 Accounts, please contact us

Sage 50 Accounts v32.0 is now available to download.  This upgrade includes the following new and improved features to help you to run your business more efficiently and save time.

  • Sage Copilot – this is a dedicated AI- powered productivity assistant, launched from the Sage 50 menu bar in several ledgers. This version of Copilot consists of two themes:

Report with Copilot – this lets you create reports using natural language, which means that you can efficiently tailor report outputs to your exact needs.

Instant Report Analysis – allows you to view your business performance quickly and easily using your Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet reports.  The detailed analysis lets you see the strengths and weaknesses of your businesses.

  • Manage Cloud Connections – this has been altered to improve the look and feel to make it easier to use.
  • Connected Cloud Purchase Automation update to AI Document Capture – the feature Purchase Automation has been renamed to AI Document Capture and has been updated, extending the ability to add transactions to a greater number of transaction types. In this version Sage have extended it to:
    • Customer Activity
    • Bank Payment
    • Cash Register
    • Bank Activity
    • Bank Receipt
    • Customer batch invoice
    • Customer batch credit
  • SEPA implementation for new plugins (Ireland) – the new SEPA pulgins for supported banks is only for the latest version of Sage 50 Accounts. This is for mandatory changes in November 2025.
  • Miscellaneous updates – Remove OAuth support from Report Designer for Gmail, support for Hotmail/Microsoft remains unchanged.

If you would like any more information on the new Sage 50 Accounts v32.0 and how it can help your business or need help installing it or if you would like to purchase an upgrade or need any other help with anything else, please contact us

Payroll

New NHS pension legislation applicable from 1st April 2025

You will need to download and install Sage 50 Payroll V31.00.236.

For Employees on an NHS pension scheme, their contribution rate depends on what tier their salary fits in.  The salary value of these tiers, and the contribution rate percentages may change on 1st April each year.

SAGE were not sent the information in time to include the normal year end update.  Instead, the background update to v31.00.236 allows you to enter the legislation.

Solution

The updated NHS pension legislation that applies retrospectively from 1st April 2025 onwards is now available.

NOTE If you have already processed a payroll for 1st April or after using the old legislation, it is recommended that you reprocess it.

Enter new legislation

Follow the steps below to add the new NHS pension legislation values to your software:

  1. Select Payroll, then Change Process Date.
  2. Set the process date to 01/04/2025 then select OK.
  3. Select Company, then Legislation.
  4. Go to the NHS Pension
  5. Click Add Date enter the date 01/04/2025, then click OK.
  6. Click the drop-down option to the right of Effective from and select 01/04/2025.

This is essential to ensure you edit the correct legislation values.

  1. Enter the relevant Band To values and check the rates are correct. Your software adds the Band From value automatically.

NOTE: check that you have entered these correctly, as a mistake here can affect your employees’ tier and/or contributions.

  1. Select OK.
  2. On your employees list, select any of your employees on the NHS pension scheme.
  3. Select Payroll, then NHS Pension Tiers.
  4. Select Save, this step refreshes the calculations bases on the new legislation values you entered.

If you need updating the new NHS Pension legislation values or need any other help or advice with your payroll, please contact us

We can also provide a remote access service where we can link into your computer to help you resolve your Sage Accounts or Payroll problems.

 

Sage 50 Accounts

Writing Off Customer Bad Debts

Sometimes you might need to write off outstanding transactions on a customer’s account, for example if they cease trading.  If this happens, the total balance on their account is transferred to a Bad Debt Write Off nominal code, this changes the debtors figure on the Balance Sheet report, and the amount written off is set against this year’s profit and loss as an overhead.

To create a Bad Debt Write Off nominal code

If you are using the Sage default nominal code structure you will already have a nominal code for Bad Debt Write Off, 8100 by default.  If you have deleted this account, or created you own nominal structure and have not created a Bad Debt Write Off nominal code, you will need to create one before proceeding.

  1. Nominal codes > New/edit
  2. Enter the number you want to use for the Bad Debt Write Off nominal code, for example, 8100.

Note: this should be within the Overhead section of the Profit and Loss report.

  1. Enter the name of the account, for example, Bad Debt Write Off.

2 Save > Close.

Writing off a bad debt

We will firstly assume that the customer has a positive balance, therefore we need to post a credit note.

  1. Customers > Batch credit
  2. Enter the relevant customer information.
  3. A/C – Customer A/c code
  4. Date – Date of write off.
  5. Credit No. – Bad Debt
  6. N/C – 8100
  7. Details – Bad Debt Write Off
  8. Net – Net amount of bad debt (if you do not know the net amount enter the gross amount and click F9 to calculate the Net amount.
  9. T/C – T1
  10. VAT – check the Vat has been calculated correctly or type in the correct VAT figure.
  11. Save >

If the customer has overpaid i.e. the customer has a negative balance, therefore we need to post a sales invoice.

  1. Customers > Batch invoice
  2. Enter the relevant customer information.
  3. A/C – Customer A/c code
  4. Date – Date of write off.
  5. Ref – Bad Debt
  6. N/C – 8100
  7. Details – Bad Debt Write Off
  8. Net – enter the amount of the overpayment to be written off.
  9. T/C – T9
  10. Save > Close.

You have now posted the invoice to write off the debt.

You now need to allocate all the outstanding transactions on the customer’s account.

  1. Customers > Customer receipt
  2. Select the relevant customer.
  3. Enter the relevant date you want to allocate the bad debt write off.
  4. Allocate the invoices/credit notes/Sales on account against each other as required.

If you would help writing off customer bad debts or customer over payments or need any other help with your Sage 50 Accounts, please contact us

 

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