Customer defaults and settings

Find this screen

Open: Sales Ledger > Utilities > Ledger Set Up > Customer Defaults and Settings

  • Select Amend to edit any of these settings.

Options

Copy statements for head offices

Select Copy statements for head offices to send customer account statements to both the head office and any branch offices of the same company.

You can specify a particular customer account as a head office, on the customer account Documents tab. The head office receives one document which contains statements for all the branch offices, while the branch offices receive only the branch statements.

If you disable Copy statements for head offices, then all customer accounts will have their Head office status set to Independent, so any links between head office and branch customer accounts will be removed.

Allow batch processing

  • Enable Allow batch processing if you want to enter multiple transactions in batches for customers.

Once you've enabled this setting, you can then use these features for customers (in the Sage 200 desktop):

  • Batched Transactions: Enter transactions for batches that were created by your user account only.
  • Batched Transactions (Manager). Enter transactions for batches created by all users.

We recommend that you use batch processing if you frequently enter a large number of transactions. When you use batch processing, you can:

  • Handle multiple transactions of the same type, e.g. invoices, and processes them in one session.
  • Change individual transactions before the batch is posted.

  • Check that your transactions match the batch total.

You can only disable Allow batch processing if there are no outstanding batches that haven't been posted.

Automatically generate customer numbers

  • If you want Sage 200 to generate your customer account Code automatically, enable Automatically generate customer numbers.

    The account Code will automatically increase by one each time you create a customer account.

    • Enter the number you want your customer accounts to start from in Begin automatic generation with.

  • If you already use a numbering system for your customer accounts and want to assign the account Code manually, disable Automatically generate customer numbers.

    If you are manually setting your account codes:

    • An account code can contain both numbers and letters, and be up to eight characters in length.
    • Use account codes of the same length to ensure accurate results when searching account records.
    • Sage 200 does not differentiate between upper and lower case letters, so an account code of abc is considered the same as ABC.

We recommend that you don't change the Automatically generate customer numbers setting after you have started to create customer accounts. If you change this setting, it may have an adverse effect on how Sage 200 searches for and locates your existing account records.

Allow additional transactional analysis

If you want to include additional nominal transaction information when you enter customer transactions, enable Allow additional transactional analysis.

Note: To enable this setting, you must first enable Allow additional transaction analysis in System Settings (in the Sage 200 desktop).

If you enable Allow additional transaction analysis, a new Transactional analysis option is displayed when entering the following transactions (and on the transaction enquiry):

  • Sales Invoices.
  • Free Text Invoices.
  • Sales Credit Notes.
  • Sales Receipts.
  • Sales Payments.
  • Batched Transactions (in the Sage 200 desktop).

Note: You can change the Transactional analysis name to something more meaningful (in System Settings), so it may be set to a different name for your company.

Changing the Allow additional transaction analysis setting will only affect new transactions that you enter, and it will not affect existing nominal transactions that have been posted or are in the waiting postings files.

If you disable this setting, the Transactional analysis column will be removed and you will no longer be able to see analysis codes that you have previously entered.

Enable card processing

Select Enable card processing if you subscribe to Opayo and want to take card payments from customers directly into Sage 200.

Once you have selected Enable card processing, you can use Online Card Receipt (in the Sage 200 desktop) to record receipts from customers.

Note: You cannot select Enable card processing unless a merchant account has been set up in Merchant Account Settings (in the Sage 200 desktop).

Selecting Enable card processing enables card payments from Opayo. If you then disable Enable card processing, you'll no longer be able to enter online card receipts. If you've taken an online card receipt and then disable this setting, you cannot reverse or refund the online transaction.

Default allocation date (customers)

You can choose the default allocation date recorded for customer transactions.

  • Use payment/receipt date: The allocation date for the transaction is set to the same date that you enter for the receipt or payment.

    For example, if you enter a receipt dated 5 November, then allocate the receipt on 12 November, the allocation date for the transaction will be 5 November.

  • Use system date: The allocation date for the transaction is set to the date when you record the allocation in Sage 200.

    For example, if you enter a receipt dated 5 November, then allocate the receipt on 12 November, the allocation date for the transaction will be 12 November.

The default allocation date will be applied when you use the following features:

  • Enter Customer Receipt.

  • Enter Free Text Invoice and enter a payment.

  • Enter Customer Payment.

  • Online Card Receipt.

  • Refund Online Card Receipt.

  • Process Invoice Payments.

  • Maintain Invoice Payment Transactions.

  • Correct Transactions, for Correct and Reverse.

Customer defaults

You can enter default settings for your customer accounts and sales transactions.

Defaults entered for the customer settings are passed on to each new customer account. Defaults entered on customer accounts are passed on to transactions.

Setting defaults here can save you time when you create accounts and also helps to prevent errors.

The following table shows how information is passed from settings to accounts, and from accounts to transactions.

Customer settings   Customer account   Transaction
Default VAT code > Default VAT code > VAT code
Settlement Discount > Settlement Discount > Settlement Discount
Payment Terms > Payment Terms > Due Date (Payment Terms)
Terms Agreed > Terms Agreed    
    Default Nominal Account > Nominal Account

Any changes you make to these defaults are only used when you create a new account. Existing accounts and transactions are not affected.

If you want to apply the changes to your existing accounts, you'll need to update each account separately.

Customer settlement discount values

If you offer your customers similar settlement discounts, entering the details here can save you time when creating new customer accounts. Settlement discounts also affect how VAT is calculated on invoices and credit notes.

The discount details that you enter here are applied to new customers accounts by default, which are then applied to transactions. You can change these on your individual customer accounts as you set them up, and also change them when entering individual transactions.

  • Early settlement days: Enter the default number of days (up to 999) an invoice must be paid in to qualify for the discount.
  • Discount %: Enter the default discount percentage you offer your customers.

Note: If you don't want to set default settlement discount details, leave these options blank.

  • In the UK, VAT on an invoice is only discounted when it is paid within the settlement discount period.

    On each invoice, VAT is calculated by default on the full invoice value. If the invoice is paid within the settlement discount period, a VAT adjustment is required, to account for the discounted VAT.

  • In Ireland, VAT is calculated on the full value of the invoice regardless of any settlement discount.

Customer Account History

Keep transactions for

Use this to decide how long you want to keep your individual customer transactions. You can keep a history of transactions on a customer account for a maximum of 36 months.

After this period, you can archive or delete the transactions (in the Sage 200 desktop).

Specify the default length of time (up to 36 months) you want to store transactions on your customer accounts.

This is used as the default time when you create new customer accounts, but you can change it for an individual account when required.

Changing this only affects new customer accounts that you create, and not existing accounts.

Archive transactions after this period

Use this to decide whether to archive or delete the transactions after the period set in Keep transactions for.

  • Enable Archive transactions after this period to send the transactions to an archive file after the period you've chosen to keep them.

  • Disable Archive transactions after this period if you want to delete the transactions after the period you've chosen to keep them.

While the transactions are stored on the account you can view and print them as required.

The transactions can only be archived or deleted if they:

  • Have exceeded their specified duration.
  • Are fully allocated.
  • Have no query flag assigned to them.

To archive or delete the transactions, use Account Maintenance in the Sage 200 desktop. You can run Account Maintenance manually, or do this when you close a period.

You can delete transactions from the archive file. You may want to delete archived transactions that are over a year old, or more frequently depending on the disk space used.

If you store a large volume of transactions, you may experience a slower response time when enquiring and sorting transactions.

This affects transactions on your accounts the next time you run Account Maintenance in the Sage 200 desktop. It does not affect transactions already in the archive file. Archived transactions can be deleted using Purge Transactions in the Sage 200 desktop.

Show outstanding transactions only

Enable Show outstanding transactions only if you want to display only the outstanding transactions for customers by default in the Customer Transaction Enquiry (the default for the Only outstanding option).

You can still choose which transactions to display by changing the Only outstanding option in the Customer Transaction Enquiry.

This affects how transactions are displayed when you next use the Customer Transaction Enquiry.

Other Customer Defaults

Waiting period for recovery of VAT on bad debts

If a customer doesn't pay you for goods and services on which you have charged and paid VAT, you can get the VAT back from HMRC by claiming bad debt relief.

To reclaim the VAT, the debt must be older than the waiting period specified by the HMRC, which was 6 months as of February 2019.

  • Specify the Waiting period for recovery of VAT on bad debts as the number of months (periods) for which you want to store sales transactions before you consider processing them as bad debts.

If you want to use this, check the HMRC guidelines for details of the statutory waiting period for VAT relief. See HMRC: VAT Returns.

Default VAT code

This helps you to make sure that the correct VAT rate is used when entering transactions.

  • Select a Default VAT code that will be used when you create new customer accounts. The VAT rate on the customer's account will also be passed on to their transactions.

If most of your customers are going to use standard VAT rate, just leave the standard VAT rate selected. But if the majority of your customers are going to use a different VAT rate, you can select an alternative VAT rate.

Each time you create a new customer account, it will default to this code. But you can still change this VAT rate for individual customer accounts, and also when entering transactions.

Default terms agreed

  • Enable Default terms agreed to automatically set new customer accounts as having agreed terms (Terms Agreed will be selected by default). You can still change this on individual accounts if you need to.

  • Disable Default terms agreed if you want to choose when each individual customer account has agreed terms.

If the Terms Agreed box isn't selected for a customer account, you'll see a Terms have not been agreed prompt when entering transactions.

Ageing

These Ageing settings help you manage your outstanding customer debt.

The ageing periods are used to show how old your outstanding transactions are, and are used on your aged debts reports and statements.

The payment terms are used to calculate when invoices are due to be paid.

Generally, customer debts are aged over three periods, which are typically 30, 60 and 90 days. The last aged period holds both the debts in the period and those debts that exceed that period.

Enter the Number of ageing periods you want to use.

You can have a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 8 ageing periods.

These default payment terms are used when you create new customer accounts. The payment terms set on an account are used to calculate the Due date of an invoice.

If you try to agree the same payment terms with most of your customers, entering a default here can save you time when creating accounts.

But you can also change the Payment Terms on individual customer accounts, and change the Due date on individual invoices.

Basis of payment terms

This determines the due date for an invoice. Once set, you can monitor payments due and optimise the credit days available.

Due date calculations are only made for invoice transactions. Credit notes always retain the same due date as the entered transaction date.

Invoices are due the specified number of days after the invoice date.

For example, if the Number of payment days is set to 15 days and you enter an invoice with an invoice date of 03/10/2020, the due date for the invoice will be 18/10/2020.

Invoices are due the specified number of days after the start of the month in which an invoice is dated.

For example, if the Number of payment days is set to 30 days and you enter an invoice with an invoice date of 03/10/2020, the due date for the invoice will be 31/10/2020.

Invoices are due the specified number of days after the end of the month in which the invoice was dated.

For example, if the Number of payment days is set to 15 days and you enter an invoice with an invoice date of 03/10/2020, the due date for the invoice will be 15/11/2020.

Invoices are due on the same day the following month.

For example, if you enter an invoice with an invoice date of 03/10/2020, the due date will be 03/11/2020.
Number of payment days

This is the number of days credit that a customer is allowed before payment of their invoice is due. You can enter up to 255 days.

Choose the number of days for each of your ageing periods.

Debtors periods start after

  • In the Debtors periods start after column, enter the length (in days) of each ageing period.

These ageing periods are used on statements and Aged Debtors reports (in the Sage 200 desktop).

For statements, you choose how to age your transactions in the Processing section.

Transactions are aged from the transaction date and not their due date.

The next time you run the Aged Debtors reports, your aged balances will show in the new periods.

Your ageing periods are set up as follows:

  • Number of ageing periods: 3
  • Debtors periods start after: 30, 60 and 90 days.

An invoice has a transaction date of 30/04/2020 and a due date of 30/05/2020.

  1. Run the Aged Debtors report, and select:

    • Ageing method: By transaction date.
    • Base date for ageing: 29/05/2020.

    The invoice appears in the Current column.

  2. Run the Aged Debtors report, and select:

    • Ageing method: By transaction date.
    • Base date for ageing: 30/05/2020.

    The invoice appears in the 30 day column.
Due date periods start after
  • In the Due date periods start after column, enter the length of each due date period (in days).

Due date periods are used on the Due Date reports and for your debtor letters (in the Sage 200 desktop).

The Due Date reports show the total amount owed by a customer, based on the number of days the transactions are past their due date.

Debtor letters are sent to your customers, based on the number of Due date periods you use. You can have a different letter for each due date period. Sage 200 sends the letter that corresponds to the Due date period that the oldest unpaid invoice falls into.

Your due date periods are automatically set to be the same as your ageing periods, but you can change them if you want to.

Transactions are listed in the relevant aged period based on the number of days they are past their due by date.

Your ageing periods are set up as follows:

  • No of periods: 3
  • Due date periods start after: 1,31, and 61 days.

The due date on a invoice is 30/04/2020.

  1. Run the Due Date report, and select:

    • Base date for ageing: 01/05/2020.

    The invoice appears in the column for one day overdue.

  2. Run Due date report, and select:

    • Base date for ageing: 31/05/2020.

    The invoice appears in the 31 day overdue column on the report.

Processing

Use foreign currency revaluation

Enable Use foreign currency revaluation to revalue invoices paid in foreign currency to their value in base currency.

This uses the exchange rate set in the Currencies and Exchange Rates table (in the Sage 200 desktop). The foreign currency exchange rate table should be updated regularly to ensure the correct exchange rates are applied to transactions.

The current exchange rate is used by default for transactions, but you can override this when you enter the transaction. The transaction is converted to base currency using this exchange rate, and then posted to the Nominal Ledger.

Exchange rates can fluctuate, so there can be differences in the exchange rate when you enter the transaction and the actual exchange rate used when the invoice is paid.

  • If you enable Use foreign currency revaluation, the exchange rates on the two transactions (the invoice and the receipt) are compared when they are allocated. If these are different, the exchange loss or gain is calculated and posted to the Exchange Differences and Debtor's control default nominal accounts.

  • If you disable Use foreign currency revaluation, then the exchange rates are not compared and no nominal account postings are made.

We recommend that you don't change Use foreign currency revaluation once you have started entering transactions, because this can cause difficulties in reconciling the sales ledger to the nominal ledger.

You can also revalue any outstanding transactions by running Foreign Account Revaluation in Period End Routines (in the Sage 200 desktop).

Statements

Transactions to show

Use Transactions to show to choose whether to include paid transactions on your statements.

All transactions

All transactions are included on the statement, both paid and unpaid.

When you run the statement (in the Sage 200 desktop), use the Transactions to show date criteria to filter these transactions.

Outstanding transactions only

Only unpaid transactions with an outstanding balance are included on the statement.

When you run the statement (in the Sage 200 desktop), use the Transactions to show date criteria to filter these transactions.

Outstanding plus all from specified date

The statement will include both paid and unpaid transactions up to a date specified on the criteria. After this date, only unpaid transactions are included.

When you run the statement (in the Sage 200 desktop), this sets the Transactions to show date criteria to To by default.

Ageing

Use Ageing to choose how transactions are aged on your statements.

Use Transaction Date

The time elapsed from the transaction date.

For example, a transaction dated 01 June will be 30 days old on the 30 June.
Use Due Date

The time elapsed from the due date of the transaction.

For example, an invoice dated of 01 June with a due date of 30 June will be 30 days old on the 30th July.
Use Ledger Period

Taken from the period the transaction is dated in.

For example, if your ledger periods are calendar monthly, an invoice dated 29th May be in the +1 month period on the 01 June.

Finance charges

If you want to add interest or finance charges to overdue unpaid invoices, you can specify the interest charge rates that you want to use in the Finance Charges table.

When you want to charge a customer interest on their overdue invoices, you can select the Finance charges on the customer account Credit tab, from the list of charges you set up here.

You can use up to 20 finance charges, numbered with a Charge Index 1 to 20.

  • For each Charge Index code that you want to use, enter the Percentage Charge.

    For any Charge Index codes that you don't need to use, leave the Percentage Charge as 0.

  • Select Charge compound interest on finance charges to add interest to finance charges already calculated on any remaining overdue debts.

Once you have specified the finance charge interest rates that you want to use, and set the finance charge rates on your customer accounts (Credit tab), you can generate your finance charges. This allows you to add interest to any overdue invoices.

Where interest is added, invoice transactions are added to the customer's account with the query flag set to F, and the reference as FIN CHARGE.

Sage is providing this article for organisations to use for general guidance. Sage works hard to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication and strives to keep all supplied information up-to-date and accurate, but makes no representations or warranties of any kind—express or implied—about the ongoing accuracy, reliability, suitability, or completeness of the information provided.

The information contained within this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice. Sage assumes no responsibility for any action taken on the basis of the article. Any reliance you place on the information contained within the article is at your own risk. In using the article, you agree that Sage is not liable for any loss or damage whatsoever, including without limitation, any direct, indirect, consequential or incidental loss or damage, arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this information.

See also

Reference

Documents (customer account)

Payment details (customer account)

Credit terms (customer account)