Amazon Purchases

Supplier Invoices received from Amazon

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Hi all!,

We buy a lot of consumables off Amazon e.g. toilet roll, stationary etc. 

Thankfully, I never have had problems with retreiving VAT invoices from Amazon - up on despatch VAT invoices are automatically issued.

I have set Amazon up as a supplier on SAGE (with the Amazon VAT REG ending in *21.)

Sometimes, the VAT invoices are in the usual Amazon format but say something like 'Sold by * * * Ltd ' and also contain a different VAT REG (as sold by a an independent seller/business off Amazon who are using Amazon as a selling platform) 

My question is do I have to set up seperate supplier accounts for each different supplier (as the VAT REG numbers would not match to the Amazon VAT REG) or can I put all the Amazon invoices under one Amazon supplier account on SAGE?

Thank you all for your help and Merry Christmas!

 

Replies (12)

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RLI
By lionofludesch
17th Dec 2021 15:17

To be honest, I would only set companies up as suppliers (by which I infer you mean a purchase ledger account) if I was taking advantage of their credit facilities.

If I only ever paid for stuff as I bought it, why would I want to make two double entries where one would do?

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Replying to lionofludesch:
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By Paul Crowley
17th Dec 2021 15:23

Same here
If the payment has VAT on it just post from bank to expense and VAT

But I know that most bookkeepers consider that easy option to be cheating

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Replying to Paul Crowley:
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By rmillaree
17th Dec 2021 16:58

"But I know that most bookkeepers consider that easy option to be cheating"
lol that seems crazy - hmmmm perhaps they all get paid by the hour so love doubling up on their work ?

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Replying to rmillaree:
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By Paul Crowley
18th Dec 2021 13:39

A bookkeeper for quite a big company was tryng to do monthy stock, prepayments, accruals and depreciation. The latter on an individual asset basis
The journals never made sense and regularly did not add up, balance going to suspense

Also hid the daft enties just by volume of journals

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John Toon
By John Toon
17th Dec 2021 17:16

I wouldn't even bother with that. Let the OCR tech do it for you and let your accounting system automatically match the transactions...

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By adam.arca
18th Dec 2021 08:03

Re posting an invoice and then a matching payment, the train of thought is that this makes it easier to identify total spend with a supplier. It also treats all paperwork received identically and saves having to make on the spot decisions about which way to treat items.

That’s the theory. As an accountant who doesn’t do much frontline bookkeeping, I’ve got to admit to a tendency to cheating on this one.

To answer the question, yes I would post all these purchases to the one Amazon a/c because, in reality if not in law, that is who you’re contracting with and, on a more practical level, who wants to litter the purchase ledger with one-time accounts with Silly Name Ltd?

I don’t understand the reference to the VAT number, though. Does that power some new-fangled feature of which I’m unaware?

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Replying to adam.arca:
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By tom123
18th Dec 2021 08:18

Nothing would surprise me - I am currently working with software that expects you to decide whether an invoice is going to be paid by direct debit at the point of entry, and use a totally different routine if so.

My software also hates the idea of two suppliers with the same postcode.

So - maybe there is software out there where the supplier 'code' is actually it's VAT number.

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By tom123
18th Dec 2021 08:14

Well, speaking as someone who has only ever done 'front line' 'in house' bookkeeping in real time, as opposed to mopping up rubbish after 9 months, I very much favour the full purchase ledger route.

Invariably, someone always wants to know how much we spent 'with' someone - even if they assured you at the time that this was a one off.

Picking out cash book entries is usually a pig.

However, I would put everything down as Amazon here, as that is who you are paying.

I have never looked at or made a note of any supplier's VAT number in my life - but I appreciate I could be an exception.

Our purchase ledger staff are totally different to our cash book and credit card staff, so it isn't really the case that you can just put purchases to the cash book easily either.

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By Samantha20
18th Dec 2021 22:05

I prefer to use the PL where we receive a VAT invoice as it means we can upload the pdf of the invoice to the invoice on Xero.

I would post all Amazon purchases to the Amazon account even if it is a 3rd party seller.

For any one-off purchases from suppliers we are unlikely to use again, I have a Miscellanous Supplier account on the PL and post the invoices there.

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Replying to Samantha20:
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By tom123
19th Dec 2021 12:28

I forbid miscellaneous suppliers in my department (and always have) because they never balance to zero :)

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Replying to tom123:
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By Samantha20
19th Dec 2021 13:04

tom123 wrote:

I forbid miscellaneous suppliers in my department (and always have) because they never balance to zero :)

You're right, they never do, so it does mean an extra task for me at the year end, but I still prefer to use the PL when we receive an invoice.

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By kiwilondon99
21st Dec 2021 09:51

Sage- setup AMAZON on;ly + post all the amazon web purchases to it -incl any 3rd party vendors. when posting use one of the extra fields to 'paste' in that 3rd party vendor/vatno if you feel the need !! Post vat as required If you are able to scan inv /attach in thru 3rd party then no issue . Keeps all AMAZON payments on statments easy[or easier] to reconcile - + espec with returns + £ credits but no c/notes !!

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