Sage 50 Payroll

FPS Adjustments

If you have changed an employee’s wages and the amount of PAYE, NI, Student loan deduction etc might have changed, so you need to inform HMRC about the changes and this is done via a FPS adjustment.

The FPS Adjustment

When you submit an FPS Adjustment, it sends the corrected values for your payroll to HMRC.  This ensures they have the latest information for you and your employees and makes sure that the values HMRC are expecting are correct.

The liability on the FPS is made up of the following information:

• PAYE + Employer’s NIC + Employee’s NIC + Student Loan + Postgraduate Loan

Values in the submission

The FPS Adjustment wizard will show the difference in this liability for the current pay period and will submit the latest year to date values for your employees in the background of the submission.

This means that although you only see the values for the most recent period during submissions, any prior periods you have amended are included in the submission.

Example

You have rolled an employee back for months 4-2 to correct some processing.  When you submit the FPS Adjustment, the FPS Liability screen will only show the changes in liability for month 4 (the difference between the original values and the new values).

In the background of your submission, it will include the latest year to date values, which will include the changes for months 2 – 4.

If you need sending an FPS Adjustment 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

Manual contra entries

If you do not have the feature to do an automatic contra entry you can do a manual entry in SAGE 50 Accounts, to offset outstanding customer and supplier invoices etc.

If you have a customer who is also a supplier, you can offset outstanding customer invoices (SI) and supplier invoices (PI).  You can also pay off Sales Payments (SP) or Purchase Receipts (PR) that post when you refund a customer or supplier.  This is a contra entry.

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.

3. Click Save then click

Post a sales receipt using the contra entry bank account

To clear the outstanding sales invoice(s) (SI) or Sales Payment(s) (SP) on the customer’s account, post a Sales receipt (SR) using the contra bank account.

1. Go to Bank account, select the contra bank account, then click Customer receipt.
2. Complete the Customer Receipt window as follows:

Account Ref     The contra bank account appears.

Account           Choose the required customer from the drop-down list.

Date                 Enter the date of the sales receipt.

Receipt             Enter the required value in the Receipt field for the relevant transaction(s).  This is the lower value of the contra entry.  For example, if the SI is £250.00 and the PI is £200.00, enter £200.00.

3. Click Save then click Close.

Post a purchase payment from the contra entry bank account

To clear the outstanding PI or PR on the supplier’s account, post a Purchase Payment (PP) using the contra bank account.

1. Go to Bank accounts, select the contra entry bank account, then click Supplier payment.
2. Complete the Supplier Payment window as follows:

Account           Enter the required supplier’s account reference.

Date                 Enter the date for the purchase payment, use the same date as the customer receipt

Payment          Enter the same value as the SR in the Payment box of the invoice item line.  For example, enter £200.00 against the relevant outstanding invoice(s).

3. Click Save then click Close.

The balance on the contra entry bank account will now be zero.

Reverse a Contra Entry

To reverse a contra entry, delete or reverse the transaction posted to the contra entry bank account in the normal way.

If you would help with creating a contra bank account and or doing contra’s entries, or reversing a contra entry or if you need any other help with your Sage 50 Accounts, please contact us

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.

3. 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.

4. 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

Payroll

New NHS pension legislation applicable from 1^st 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 1^st 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 1^st April 2025 onwards is now available.

NOTE If you have already processed a payroll for 1^st 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.

7. 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.

8. Select OK.
9. On your employees list, select any of your employees on the NHS pension scheme.
10. Select Payroll, then NHS Pension Tiers.
11. 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