blasted paperwork

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blasted paperwork

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jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28252
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 07 11:27 am Post subject: blasted paperwork

Just spent an hour or so recovering the accounts from a backup having stupidly told SAGE to reconcile my VAT before spotting a mistake, total I had to pay was correct but some things were under the wrong non vattable code and hences sales totals were wrong

I guess this could have been a lot worse.

1) I did have a recent backup.
2) I did have detailed printouts of previous returns to help me spot the mistake.

I guess the moral of the story is that the more you do backup and record the more you are able to dig yourself out of a hole.

Bernie66

Joined: 14 Jan 2005
Posts: 13967
Location: Eastoft

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 07 11:29 am Post subject:
And paper copies are usually easier to read and see errors on in my experience.

Maxwell Smart

Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 607
Location: London Town

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 8:43 am Post subject:
Is this what I get to look forward to? I bought Sage a year ago and must confess haven't installed it yet....

Barefoot Andrew
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 21 Mar 2007
Posts: 22780
Location: In the 17th century

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 9:56 am Post subject:
I managed to avoid this grief and buy Quickbooks instead... A.

Maxwell Smart

Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 607
Location: London Town

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 11:38 am Post subject:

Barefoot Andrew wrote:

I managed to avoid this grief and buy Quickbooks instead...
A.

I did look at it but I need something expandable and that has reasonably good stock management and web integration. One day I will install it....

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 1:56 pm Post subject: Re: blasted paperwork

jema wrote:

Just spent an hour or so recovering the accounts from a backup .... some things were under the wrong non vattable code and hences sales totals were wrong

...
I guess the moral of the story is that the more you do backup and record the more you are able to dig yourself out of a hole.

If one thing was outstanding about MYOB, it was the ease with which mistakes could be corrected. This would have been the work of a minute or two.
You can correct things right up until you close and finalise the financial year.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28252
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 3:21 pm Post subject:

Sage does seem to have a few uncorrectable chasms you can fall into

I would also say I found a lot of it painfully unintuitive

Things like the need and process of "posting" invoices for example.

It seems very geared to people being trained to do it, and them doing it a darn sight more than I do. Something like the VAT every three months is not frequent enough to make me confident and fluent in these things.

Even the big "Reconcile" button which should be easily understood and explainable does not make itself clear. I would be so much easier if when you hovered on that button you got some help shown in big letters:

"Transactions can be marked as reconciled for VAT. e.g. marked that they have been counted on a VAT return. Once this is done they will not be processed for VAT again.
So only reconcile once you are happy with the VAT return.

When submitting a new return you can include unreconciled transactions from before the reporting period. "

However whatever you think of SAGE, and I am not impressed, it is what your accountant is probably using....

MarkS

Joined: 01 Aug 2006
Posts: 2626

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 8:44 pm Post subject:
I quite agree. I think that it is a terrible bit of software. However they have the market sown up. Im sure that its nothing to do with the deals accountants get.

Maxwell Smart

Joined: 29 May 2005
Posts: 607
Location: London Town

Posted: Fri Sep 28, 07 8:59 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

However whatever you think of SAGE, and I am not impressed, it is what your accountant is probably using....

Unfortunately the main reason we got it...

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