Set up stage 3: Create records and enter balances

Congratulations on completing the Configuration Assistant and welcome to the Sage 200 Home Page. You are now in the full application and can perform the second stage configuration and set up tasks.

In this stage you can set up your bank accounts, customers, suppliers and stock items. You also need to enter your opening balances.

To do this you need to:

1. Decide a date to start entering transactions in Sage 200

   You need to decide at what point you are going to start entering transactions. Whatever date you choose to do this, you are certain to have opening balances to enter for your accounts.

   You can start entering transactions on any date you want.

2. Obtain a closing trial balance from your previous system.

   Many companies choose the start of the new financial year as their opening date because they or their accountant has normally drawn up a set of accounts up to that date. This closing set of accounts can then act as the opening balances for the new year.

   If you intend to start using Sage 200 part way through your financial year, you'll need to obtain a closing trial balance from your previous system and use this as the basis for your opening balances. Ask your accountant for assistance in this matter if you are unsure about how to achieve this.

3. Enter an opening balance journal for all your nominal accounts.

4. Enter opening balances for your customers, suppliers, bank accounts and stock items. This is to make sure that the balance these accounts is correct. These opening balances don't update your nominal accounts.

Enter opening balances for your nominal accounts

You enter your opening balances for your nominal accounts as an opening Trial Balance journal. This represents the financial position of your organisation on the day you start entering live transactions in Sage 200.

The journal should include the value of your outstanding debtors, outstanding creditors, stock and bank accounts. This is because the opening balances for your customers, suppliers, stock items and bank accounts don't post to your nominal accounts.

To enter this journal:

Open: Nominal > Enter Transactions > Nominal Journal Entry.

Create bank accounts and set their opening balances

Set up Sage 200 bank account records for any type of account you use to pay money in and out of. This can include cash, credit card cards and standard bank accounts.

Your Sage 200 bank accounts can operate in any currency and their balances are stored in their own currency. Remember that transactions posted to your nominal accounts are always made in your base currency. If your bank account operates in a foreign currency Sage 200 will use the exchange rate to perform the conversion to base for nominal transaction postings.

A default bank account with the sort code to 00-00-00 has been set up for you. We recommend that you amend this account to reflect the details of your actual main bank account. If you need to, you can also create additional bank accounts. We recommend that you have a separate nominal account for each new bank account.

It's likely that you'll also need to enter an opening balance for your bank accounts. You can do this in two ways:

• As a single transaction representing the actual balance of your bank account. Use this method if you've reconciled your account elsewhere and you don't have any unreconciled transactions.

• As a reconciled balance and additional unreconciled transactions.

  Use this method if your bank account has been reconciled in a previous system and the balance of the account includes unreconciled transactions.

When you enter opening balances for your bank accounts, the values are not posted to your nominal accounts. Your opening trial balance journal will need to include your the current balance of your bank accounts.

What do you want to do?

• Create nominal accounts for your bank account

• Create a new bank account

• Enter a single value opening balance for a bank account

• Enter an opening balance plus unreconciled transactions

Create customer records and set their opening balances

Set up customer accounts for any customers you deal with regularly. You can set up accounts for any currency and their account balance is stored in that currency.

You can manually can create accounts for your customers individually or you can import the details via a CSV file.

If you migrate into Sage 200 from another system you need to post an opening balance to their account. You would do this only once and would post either an Invoice Opening Balance or Credit Note Opening Balance to reflect the customer's credit or debit balance.

Note: When you enter opening balances for your customer accounts, the values are not posted to your nominal accounts. Your opening trial balance journal will need to include your the value of your outstanding debtors.

What do you want to do?

• Import and export customer accounts

• Create a customer account

• Enter opening balances for customer accounts

Create supplier records and set their opening balances

Set up supplier accounts for any suppliers you deal with regularly. You can set up accounts for any currency and their account balance is stored in that currency.

You can create accounts for your suppliers individually or you can import the details via a CSV file.

If you migrate into Sage 200 from another system you need to post an opening balance to their account. You would do this only once and would post either an Invoice Opening Balance or Credit Note Opening Balance to reflect the customer's credit or debit balance.

Note: When you enter opening balances for your supplier accounts, the values are not posted to your nominal accounts. Your opening trial balance journal will need to include your the value of your outstanding creditors.

What do you want to do?

• Import and export supplier accounts

• Manually create a single supplier record

• Enter opening balances for suppliers

Create stock items and set their opening balances

Set up stock item records for all items that you sell regularly, this is for both physical stock items and any services or labour that you want to include on your sales and purchase orders.

You can create each stock items separately or you can import them via a CSV file.

If you're migrating into 200 from another system you may want to enter an opening balance for your stock items. You can only do this once for each item. To make this easier, you can import these via a CSV file.

Note: This just updates the stock levels in the appropriate warehouse and does not post any values to your nominal accounts. Your opening trial balance should include the value of your stock.

What do you want to do?

• Create stock items

• Import and export stock items

• Enter stock opening balances

• Import stock opening balances

What's next?

Congratulations, you have now configured Sage 200 ready to start entering transactions.

Before you start processing transactions we suggest:

• Setting up optional services such as Sage bank feeds, online card processing with Opayo (formerly Sage Pay), or Supplier Payments.

• Familiarising yourself with the Sage 200 desktop.