End of Month Accounts

[GiftsHandpicked]

Hi,

I am new to Bluepark and was just wondering what everyone does regards accounting. I am unsure wether to print a copy of every invoice or wether there is somewhere in bluepark where at the end of the month will let me export my sales.

I did notice that for an additional cost I could export into quick books but I already use Sage Accounting for my Ebay, Amazon and Shop sales so would appreciate any helpful tips.

Thanks in advance
Natalie
www.giftsfromhandpicked.com (http://www.giftsfromhandpicked.com)

[Red Devil]

You can download your orders into a CSV file at any time of the month through Orders / Order Manager, click on the Silver (White Arrow) icon at the top right of the page. The boxes to the left of the icon allow you to export from a certain order and/or with export orders only or orders and (multiple) items. This information can be cut down using Excel and then interrogated.

I'm sure others on here use more sophisicated methods of getting their data into their 3rd party accounting packages and will be along to help.

[Gillf]

Hi
Our accountant downloads the orders as Red Devil said. He also downloads the stats again at each quarter, when he does the VAT return, to pick up on any refunds and adjusts the figures accordingly.

[Andrew]

Isn't it odd how book keepers and accountants have their own way of doing things. Our book keeping firm insists on using Sagepay reports as the primary method of financial reconciliation as this is the actual money that is transferred into our bank account. I suspect that we may now be paying over the odds for our one day a week book keeping services and need to investigate how I can perhaps streamline this to cut down on costs.

[petad]

Our accountant wanted us to print off every invoice and give them to him. After taking independent advice, I now provide him with a copy on disc of all invoices.

[Dave]

Our account is happy with a copy of our MYOB accounts file and then all our suppliers invoices, bank statements, cheque books etc. Delivering this lot can be a challenge and last year we had something like 10 to 12 lever arch files just for supplier invoices! So if our accountant wanted paper copies of customer invoices as well we might have to hire a removal company or a couple of mules :D

[petad]

So if our accountant wanted paper copies of customer invoices as well we might have to hire a removal company or a couple of mules :D

That was my issue - dozens of lever arch files, and of course the cost of paper and more significantly, the printer ink (sorry Dave...:eek:).

[little-linguist]

We use Quickbooks - integrates very nicely with Bluepark and suits our needs well as it is also the preferred programme for our bookkeeper.

Our accountant still has paper invoices for our sales and our supplier invoices though. The storage is a nightmare. Last year, we had about 30 lever arch files for sales and another 6 or so for our purchases. Plus all the bank statements blah blah blah and that is a lot to store - and that's just one year. Multiply this by the 6 or 7 years that you need to store these things for and it won't be long before we need another industrial unit just for archived paperwork!

[Andrew]

Storage of our paper sales and purchase invoices are a major headache for us to, we are in our 7th year of trading so hopefully we can start shredding soon :eek:

[petad]

Well my understanding is that these can now be stored electronically, and that you don't need paper copies, as long as they are held as an image (e.g. PDF). Most Councils's for instance, now have scanning and electronic indexing and storage facilities, so they can fee up loads of space previously taken up by paper records.

Don't take my word on this though - always take the advice of an independent advisor etc. etc. This thread on UKBF that I started some time ago gives some useful guidance, though http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=120411.

If you can't get in, here's a typical quote from the thread:


No you don't have to keep paper copies of invoices.

VAT guidance here (http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/vat/managing/returns-accounts/accounts.htm#5) specifically refers to this.

I haven't got a single paper copy of any invoice. I print invoices to pdfs, and if necessary print a paper copy for the client - some are quite happy with a pdf emailed to them.

I also scan in purchase invoices and destroy the originals, once they are safely backed up, and don't even keep bank statements.

I've had a VAT inspection since starting this, and it caused no issues whatsoever, although she was slightly taken aback at asking for he records and being given a CD full of pdfs!

[mikepayn]

I left Warehousing/Archiving and Storage in 2003 but as the law stood then you were not obliged to keep hardcopy if you kept full electronic copy (either totally electonic or on film/microfiche). It had to be one or the other - not mixed.
The Multinational Pharmaceutical Co I worked for switched to Electronic storage around 1996/7. Their previous archives, with records dating back to the 1930's - a requirement for licensing purposes - is stored in racking at a warehouse in the UK occupying an area about the size of a football pitch!

[GiftsHandpicked]

Thanks everyone for your help. It just goes to show how different accountants all are. I have found the CSV file and my husband has just said that he will create something so that when I copy and paste this file into excel he will be able to get it just to show the information I require and break down the worldwide sales. ( I didn't realise he was a whizz on excel, I thought he fixed turbines lol!) So if anyone needs help on excel!

Natalie
www.gifstfromhandpicked.com (http://www.gifstfromhandpicked.com)