Sage - Chart of Accounts

[prozak]

Slowly but surely making the switch to Sage Instant Accounts.

Does anyone have a good chart of accounts or recommended chart of accounts for Sage?

I'm still a bit concerned that I might end up breaking something if I make wholesale changes from the "general business" COA that comes with Sage, but there is a load of guff in there that I don't need and I also like more a more structured hierarchy for categories.

What I mean by that is Sage COA has:
Overheads ->Gross Wages->Director Remuneration

Whereas I would prefer:
Expenses -> Employee & Director Expenses-> Director Expenses -> Director Remuneration.

I know how I can achieve this. I think I just have to remove the expenses level, but like I said I am not certain of what I might break if I ungroup all the things Sage has in the Overheads category.

Cheers.

[Clare@InTouch]

Amending the chart of accounts will affect how Sage allocates in the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet reports, so it depends on how you want it shown there. You could just add in new headings under Expenses, ignoring the Sage generated lot entirely, meaning the values will appear under Expenses in the P&L rather than being split into Overheads and Expenses. It actually keeps the P&L neater, and won't make any difference to tax calculations.

Check with your accountant too, they may have a set of Sage codes that they use. If they don't use Sage as standard (as we don't) then it makes no difference. All they would want is the final trial balance anyway.

[Jeremiah@RHJAccountants]

If you want to set up a new COA for directors remuneration you could do this by setting it up in direct expenses.

this way it would appear under direct expenses and not overheads.

but to be honest either way you do it will not make any difference to the figures or tax calculations, it will just be shown differently on the P & L report.

Your accountant may have sage codes they use but it will be very straightforward for them to pick up the figures from your trial balance.

[prozak]

Thanks Both.

I think I'll have to experiment to get them how I want.

I guess my main concern is that Sage relies on certain ranges to produce reports, but I suppose as long as I don't put an expense in a revenue (for example) code the reports will be fine.... ish.

I also dunno why sage bothers with materials or COGS basically as well as Direct costs of sales. Seems to me a lot of the direct costs could easily go in a general pool of expenses... ege advertising, sub-contractors.

[Jeremiah@RHJAccountants]

Your Welcome

Thanks Both.

I think I'll have to experiment to get them how I want.

I guess my main concern is that Sage relies on certain ranges to produce reports, but I suppose as long as I don't put an expense in a revenue (for example) code the reports will be fine.... ish.

I also dunno why sage bothers with materials or COGS basically as well as Direct costs of sales. Seems to me a lot of the direct costs could easily go in a general pool of expenses... ege advertising, sub-contractors.

Your welcome

If experiment then you should be able to get it how you want don't forget to back up before you experiment just incase you do something you don't want to do! at least this way you can go back to the original untill you are happy with it.

Sage is generally a good program but as with most there are some puzzling things with it too