New to DIY accounting

[omagames]

Am new to DIY accounting. Am not usually this dumb, but I think I need a little push start. I have my shoe box with all reciepts, invoices, bank statements neatly arranged.
I want to start inputting data.

• Where do I start?
• Instructions say sales & purchase files only, what happens to my 'bank' and ' cash'?
• I see in cash, source of funds, enter cash recieved and various columns under cash receipts, do I enter items twice?

Am sure this is really easy but perhaps someone can point me in the right direction.

thanks guys

[Lord Hutton]

You don't say if you are self employed or a limited company, i.e. what package you are using - this will always help in framing any responses. Of course you need to enter your bank data as well from your statememnts plus any cash movements if you are operating petty cash or a float. How much detail you decide to enter in the bank accounts is up to you, but the opening and closing balances need to reconcile with your actual bank accounts. There are boxes to enter your opening and closing bank balances, so that it is simple to reconcile your inputs. There are columns in the sales tabs that allow you to enter actual receipts against each invoice i.e. if your customers have paid deposits and so you are waiting on the balance to clear the total amount owing, however the actual cash, cheques or credit card receipts still have to be entered in the bank or cash sheets as there are no direct links between sales sheets and bank sheets. Hope this helps, come back if you need more assistance.

[omagames]

Thank you for your response. Still not very clear perhaps if I give my business model it may help.

• I am self employed and I am using the self employed model
• I purchase my goods for sale from a variety of sources, including ebay, main wholesalers and even retail shops.
• Many of my purchases show up as paypal transactions on my bank account.

• My sales are mostly abroad out of the EU.
• Payments are made to me in bulk by international bank transfers from my buyers abroad.
• I do sell a few items on ebay to UK based buyers.

I am registered for VAT (looking to get refunds on out of EU sales)

I intend to start selling a large number of items (small value, hopefully large numbers) on Ebay, Amazon and my website in the immediate future.

I really don't know what question to ask at this point, perhaps you can advice or suggest what entries I should start with.

Thank you for your time and obvious patience.

[antonycc]

>> perhaps you can advice or suggest what entries I should start with.

Entering Sales (anythin g you sold) and Purchases (anything you paid for) is a good place to start. You'll need to enter information your business at the start of the trading year and set reporting dates (e.g. VAT periods) to strat getting sensible figures out.

For a quick start you could just enter a single high value sale and a similar purchase (guessing the totals for the year) then work on the rest of the package to see profits coming out of the balance sheet that you'd expect.

If you want to consider bulk payments as single sale you may be better using a 'cash accounting' model where you record sales and purchases only when the funds are recieved or paid.

[omagames]

Thank you very much for your responses, I am begining to get the hang of this.

Another question in purchases how do I deal with purchases from suppliers who do not charge VAT, such as items bought from ebay via paypal, or post office charges, etc.

Bear in mind, I am registered for VAT. Obviously I cannot claim VAT on items I did not pay VAT on.

Thanx in advance.

[antonycc]

For zero rated purchase or a purchase from someone not registered for VAT, overtype the calculated VAT amount in the row in Purchases with zero.

[omagames]

Why didn't someone tell me it was this easy?
This is a fantastic bit of kit.
Where can we leave positive feedback that others will see?

I will have further questions, thanks for your help and thanks in advance.....

[antonycc]

You can post a review here: http://www.freeindex.co.uk/write-review.htm?id=7375

Sharing your experience with others on the forum is a nice way to put something back or just spread the word.

Thanks for your business.

[badvoc]

Originally Posted by omagames

Why didn't someone tell me it was this easy?
This is a fantastic bit of kit.

I can only agree, so glad I found it, makes doing your accounts so easy

[ahathe60]

Ditto to that!