Cover

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: Setting Up and Registering Sage One

Part II: Using Sage One Accounts

Part III: Introducing Sage One Cashbook

Part IV: Working with an Accountant

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Setting Up and Registering Sage One

Chapter 1: Introducing Sage One

Meeting the Typical Sage One User

Enjoying the Benefits of Sage One

Acquainting Yourself with the Three Variants of Sage One

Cashing in with Sage One Cashbook

Keeping track with Sage One Accounts

Sharing data with Sage One Accountant Edition

Registering for Sage One

Navigating Sage One

Checking out the Summary screen

Introducing Jingles

Chapter 2: Sorting Out Your Settings

Making Sage One Your Own: Creating Individual Settings

Paying up with Billing Settings

Deciding on your desired Service Settings

Using User Settings

Taking Control With Your Business and Financial Settings

Displaying Business Settings

Getting the VAT right: Financial Settings

Getting paid: Invoice Settings

Using a Checklist

Chapter 3: Keeping in Contact: Setting Up Your Records

Creating Customer Records

Entering customer contacts

Sorting customer records

Recording Supplier Details

Entering supplier records

Sorting your supplier records

Tracking Down a Contact

Editing Your Contact Details

Deleting Contacts: You’re Outta Here

Producing Product/ Service Records

Banking That Income: Creating New Bank Records

Chapter 4: Recording Your Opening Balances

Entering Your Opening Balances

Creating Products and Services for Unpaid Sales Invoices

Recording an Unpaid Purchase Invoice

Running Through Some Exercises

Part II: Using Sage One Accounts

Chapter 5: Entering Invoices for Customers and Suppliers

Getting Paid: Setting Up Sales Invoices

Working With Sales Invoices

Viewing and editing a sales invoice

Voiding a sales invoice

Entering a discount for a sales invoice

Printing your sales invoice

Emailing your sales invoice

Giving Credit Where It’s Due: Raising a Credit Note

Recording Purchase Invoices

Recording a Supplier Credit Note

Trying Out Some Invoice Exercises

Chapter 6: Recording Payments from Customers and to Suppliers

Recording a Customer Payment

Handling Other Customer Payment Tasks

Running an Outstanding Sales Invoice report to check who’s paid

Refunding an invoice

Paying Up: Recording a Supplier Invoice

Paying part of a supplier invoice

Producing an Outstanding Purchase Invoice report

Getting in Some Practice

Chapter 7: Banking on Your Bank Accounts

Counting On Your Default Bank Accounts

Keeping current with your Current account

Handling your Cash in Hand account

Editing your bank account

Entering Other Bank Payments and Receipts

Recurring income

Stopping the recurring income

Paying cheques into your bank account

Making payments other than supplier payments

Shelling Out with Expenses

Setting up a recurring expense

Stopping a recurring expense

Refunding expenses

Transferring Money between Bank Accounts

Getting Petty: Dealing with Petty Cash

Carrying on with Credit Cards

Processing a payment on your credit card

Making a payment against your credit card

Settling Any Differences: Reconciling Your Bank Account

Trying Things Yourself

Answering Trying Things Yourself

Chapter 8: Running Your VAT Return

Creating a VAT Return

Submitting Your VAT Return

Registering to submit your VAT returns online

Using HMRC’s website

Sending your return directly from Sage One

Coughing Up: Paying VAT

Having a Go Yourself

Chapter 9: Preparing Reports

Looking at the Reports Sage One Can Run

Using the Different Reports

Checking your Profit and Loss report

Running a Balance Sheet report

Balancing things up with a Trial Balance

Drilling down to the detail

Reporting Yourself!

Part III: Introducing Sage One Cashbook

Chapter 10: Setting Up Your Sage One Cashbook

Understanding What Sage One Cashbook Can Do for You

Working with your accountant

Inviting your accountant to join in the fun

Downloading Your Free Trial

Tracking Your Cash with Sage One Cashbook

Keeping up-to-date with Cashbook

Taking a peek at the Banking screen

Checking out your Summary

Cultivating your Contacts

Checking Your Settings

Chapter 11: Entering Data into Your Cashbook

Getting Started with Opening Balances

Setting Up and Using Cashbook Bank Accounts

Editing your bank account details

Transferring money between accounts

Giving Credit to Cashbook

Cashing in with hard cash and paper cheques

Bagging bank transfers

Logging Expenses in Cashbook

Again, and again, and again: Dealing with a recurring expense

Stop! In the name of Sage: Halting a recurring transaction

Give it up: Refunding expenses

Recording Payments from Petty Cash

Wiping Away Mistakes: Editing Bank Entries

Paying into Your Bank Account

Checking Your Bank Statements

Reconciling your bank account entries

Viewing a snapshot of your business

Running a Profit and Loss report

Rehearsing with Sage One Cashbook

Answering the Have a Go Questions

Part IV: Working with an Accountant

Chapter 12: When the Going Gets Tough: Calling an Accountant

Deciding Whether You Need an Accountant

Starting from scratch: Advice on setting up a business

Helping assess yourself: Tax returns

Dealing with company tax returns

Advising on tax

Submitting VAT returns

Operating the payroll

Preparing your year-end accounts

Filing information to HMRC and Companies House

Finding an Accountant

Listening to word of mouth

Using local network groups

Linking up with other businesses

Local sites for local people: Finding your chamber of commerce

Checking out business directories – with caution

Networking online

Accessing the Sage Accountants’ Club

Chapter 13: Collaborating with Sage One Accountant Edition

Introducing Sage One Accountant Edition

Inviting Your Accountant to Join the Sage One Party

Logging In to Your Financial Data

I Name that Account in One: Nominal Account Activity

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 14: Ten Top Troubleshooting Tips

Chapter 15: Ten Ways to Run Your Accounts System Effectively

Bank Your Cash Regularly

Monitor Customers that Haven’t Paid

Check Your Cash Flow

Keep on Top of Supplier Payments

Maintain an Accurate Petty Cash System

Store All Your Receipts

Reconcile Your Bank Accounts Regularly

Discover the Benefits of Easy-to-Use Filing Systems

Make Full Use of Checklists

Report in a Timely Fashion

Appendix: Glossary

Cheat Sheet

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Jane Kelly trained as a Chartered Management Accountant while working in industry. Her roles ranged from Company Accountant in a small advertising business to Financial Controller for a national house builder. For the last few years Jane has specialised in using Sage accounting software and has taught a wide variety of small businesses and employees the benefits of using Sage. More recently Jane has been involved in writing For Dummies books, the first one being Sage 50 For Dummies, which continues to be a popular choice for Sage users. This latest book has been produced to explain the benefits of the Sage One service that has recently launched. Jane saw a gap in the market for providing a book that offers a Have a Go section where readers can use dummy data to try out the online accounting service.

I hope that this book will help many of the small business owners that currently struggle keeping up-to-date with their finances. I want people to understand that if a system is set up properly, it will be very easy to use and the business will gain maximum benefit from it.

I want to thank everyone at Wiley who have been very kind and supportive, particularly Rachael Chilvers and the rest of the development team who have turned my words and pictures into the For Dummies book that you see before you.

I would also like to thank the staff at Sage UK Limited, particularly Michael Barber and Richard Hughes, who have patiently answered my questions and comments about Sage One.

Finally, I would like to thank my husband Malcolm and my daughter Megan who have put up with me disappearing into the office to work on the book for what must have seemed like a never-ending time.

I would like to dedicate this book to my daughter Megan and my husband Malcolm. Without their support none of my books would ever have been created.

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Foreword

Accounting has been around for thousands of years and still forms part of everyday business life. It’s core to all businesses and is as important as any other process such as paying your staff or buying stock.

But you don’t start a business because you want to produce accounts. You start a business because you have a passion for what you do and you want to achieve success. The accounting side is just a necessary part of the process.

When Sage was established in 1981, the emerging technology consisted of floppy disks and an Amstrad office computer. Out of that spirit of innovation came the first Sage software package designed to help businesses with basic accounting. These days, businesses have an ever-increasing choice when it comes to deciding on how to run their business and how to record their accounts. Some use spreadsheets; some prefer to do it manually using receipts and notebooks; while others use accounting software. And with computers and the Internet increasingly present, more and more people are using laptops, iPads and mobile phones to help run their business and are looking for the solutions to fit their needs.

We too have come a long way from those first floppy disks. Sage is now a global company. A leading supplier of business software to 6.3 million businesses worldwide. With over 30 years’ experience of working with businesses of all sizes, we’ve continued to develop our accounting and business software. And in January 2011 we launched Sage UK’s first online accounting solution – Sage One.

We talked to hundreds of small businesses and accountants all across the UK to find out what they needed from an accounting service. And our goal became delivering safe, simple online accounting, supported by the experts.

Sage One benefits from the advances in technology that have led to the introduction of Software as a Service – essentially, software that is run over the Internet or ‘cloud’, via an Internet browser. These cloud services offer many advantages to businesses. They’re typically cheaper than their traditional desktop counterparts because there are no production or packaging costs. And because you can access them from Internet-enabled devices, such as PCs or Macs, iPads and even mobile phones, you’re less restricted and can operate your business on the move.

We want to make it really easy for business owners to run their business using online services. We believe that necessary business processes, like accounting, shouldn’t get in the way of you actually running your business. But because we recognise that the relationship between a small business owner and an accountant is important, we designed Sage One to allow them to work together easily, efficiently, online and in real time.

The aim of Sage One For Dummies is to help you maximise the value of using Sage One to manage your business finances. As Sage One requires no previous accounting knowledge there’s a real synergy between Sage One and the For Dummies brand. For Dummies books take away the jargon and strip back complicated processes, making them easy for the inexperienced, which is exactly what Sage One is all about.

We understand that you didn’t get into business to produce accounts. So, by making the necessary parts of the process as simple and straightforward as possible, you can get on and enjoy running your business.

Chris Stonehouse

Head of Sage Online, Sage UK Limited

Sage One For Dummies®

Sage One For Dummies^®