I've got a client who has gone onto Sage Business Cloud. I've done the first year and found Sage quite good, obviously copying a lot of the way Xero works. But second year, I can't seem to get a meaningful trial balance.
You have two options, "this period" which is purely the movements in this year, so the profit will work, but balance sheet obviously doesnt.
Other option is to show opening and closing balances. There are then 3 columns, opening balances, this period (same as above) and closing balances. Opening balance is exactly the same as the previous years balances, including all the previous years P&L. Middle column is the same as 'this period' above, so just the movements in the year. And closing balance adds the two. So Balance sheet is correct, but the P&L is the running total, ie last years profits and this years profits.
So none of the columns are any use as a TB.
I guess I can export to csv and splice together the balance sheet items from the 'closing balances' and the P&L from the 'this period' but surely there should just be a normal TB there ?
Has anybody else used it, or know how to get it to work ?
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Try using date
From start date to finish date
I dislike the 'cheap' cloud version. All reports less well designed than the old desk top version
We were offered the new version at £3 per month for licences to sell to clients a while back, but needed to buy at least 10 a time
Starter version is now £12 per month for a client
There is a little tick box 'summarise profit and loss' which effectively rolls up the prior year balances into the p&l.
That box is greyed out. But its the prior year balances being added into this year that is the problem.
Sage TB is actually better than xero as it will show op balances - movement and closing balances (xero could learn a trick here)
only think you have forgotten to do here is tick the "summarise profit and loss values" - tickbox being near the top left.
Thanks to both of you, it was greyed out if you choose 'this financial year' or any other date option, where the figures are all wrong. But if you dont choose any dates and put the drop down box onto 'as of' it un-greys itself. And the TB works now hopefully. Not sure what they mean by "summarise profit and loss values" though, and wonder why that isnt the default, and why 2 different people on their help line told me you couldnt get a proper trial balance.
PS rmillaree, when I do it, if you put the drop down box to 'this financial year' the opening and P&L closing balances include figures from the previous years. On the helpline, they thought that would be useful, knowing the profit since the company started. They said the middle column (with the wrong balance sheet) gives you the current years profit. There's no getting away from it, all but one of the reports are just plain wrong, it's obvious no accountant or book-keeper was involved in the design of it.
" There's no getting away from it, all but one of the reports are just plain wrong, it's obvious no accountant or book-keeper was involved in the design of it."
I am not sure if you still have unresolved issues here you may need to check start date or year ends as per financial settings -
If you do the curent year tb with the "summarise profit" and loss box ticked as i advised then there are no issues and i get the figures i would like to see and expect - they are all included in the right hand column marked "closing balance" - being closing balance for balance sheet items and this years totals for profit and loss items- ie full tb as you would expect from any package for current period.
"They said the middle column (with the wrong balance sheet) gives you the current years profit."
The middle column is simply there to show the sum of this period entries - there is nothing "wrong here" - ref balance sheet its simply the sum of the entries for this period excluding opening balance - the correct balance being shown in the right hand column - the middle and right columns both showing same correct totals for profit and loss as long as the right box is ticked at the top.
The only entries that may be wonky would perhaps be in equity section if you need to manually clear out dividends totals to retained profits - as is also required in xero .
with sage sometimes you may need to refresh figures to get figures updated on screen - if you have all stuff correctly dated try pressing f5 to refresh checking that the info is as it was before - if its still not working the current year end in financial setting being wrong is the mostly likely reason for wrong info being produced.
I often wonder if any of these software providers actually have any accountants working there. It seems they are staffed by people who have just heard of "accounting" somewhere .. truly scarey .
I have never thought that Sage was for for purpose. For years, Sage 50 couldn't even produce a P&L with comparatives until the prior year had been closed off! The more I hear about problems with every new accounting product they develop, the more I realise that Sage is just a four-letter word.
