A quick look suggests it is possible to change that date via the menu entry I mentioned - something I've never actually had to do. Though what the implications are for your data, I'm not sure, so what I'm about to suggest is more guess work than anything else.
Is the year you are working on - March 2011 to February 2012 - the first year? If so, it'll probably be okay to change the year start date, but make sure you take back-ups, and run a trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet to January 2012 before proceeding; then run the same reports again after changing the start date to March 2011, still running them to January 2012, to ensure the figures are the same. If they are unchanged, it's all gone smoothly. If they differ, though, restore the back-up and contact Sage.
Edit: Run those reports from the brought forward figures, not the first month of the year.
-- Edited by VinceH on Tuesday 22nd of January 2013 03:04:34 PM
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
I'm using Sage 50 Accountant 2010. Invoices are being posted from 1/3/2011 to 28/2/2012 (which is our financial year) for the annual return to be sent in. The last few invoices are being entered for Feb 12. The computer date has been changed from 2011 to 29/2/2012 so Feb invoices can be posted and paid. The yearend has not been done yet until all Feb invoices have been posted and paid. When I tried to post the invoices it said something similar to invoices will be posted outside the financial year. There was a tick box for me to pause this message so I ticked it and posted the invoices. I've tried to pay the invoices but when I press save it does not post the bank payment, nothing happens. Can someone advise me what I may have done wrong and how I can rectify it please.
If it's warning you that the invoices being posted are outside the financial year, then either your financial year is not set how you thought, or you've posted them with the wrong date - for example, Feb 2013 instead of Feb 2012. I suspect the latter. The most likely cause of that happening is that Sage doesn't have the right year set, and you are short-cutting the date by entering (say) 10/02 and hitting tab, so that Sage completes the date by appending the year.
I note you said (as you did in another thread) that you are changing the computer date. However, if Sage was already running when the date was showing 2011, subsequently changing the computer date to 2012 won't affect Sage - it'll still think it's 2011. That could be the root cause of your problem. The best approach is to either enter dates in full if they are not in the current month or year, or if you really want to short-cut their entry, you have to change the current date in Sage, and not the computer itself. You can do this from the Settings menu => "Change Program Date..."
(You should really leave the computer date itself current - changing that can cause other problems; emails can get sent with the wrong date, and be rejected by anti-spam systems, you've already experienced problems with forums, datestamps on files can be wildly out which will in turn cause some back-up systems to overlook them, and so on.)
As for the payments against the invoices not saving, I'm drawing a blank on that one because I've not experienced it before. If it's date related, I'd normally expect - at the very least - a warning or error (for example that the payment date is before the invoice date), not a complete lack of anything.
Your starting point, though, is to check those transactions you've [probably] entered with the wrong dates and put those right if my guess is correct. Use File => Maintenance => Corrections. Hopefully, there aren't a huge number.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
I always close sage first before I change the date on the computer and I always type the date in full rather then pressing the tab. All invoices and payments made from 1/3/2011 to Jan 2012 were ok. It was invoices and payments for Feb 2012. Invoices posted with the warning message that it was outside the financial year do you want to continue. I choose yes and continued. To be able to pay the invoices, I logged on as another user. I also go a warning message stating that the payment is outside the financial year do you want to continue, I opted to continue and the invoice was able to be paid but I'm unsure why it won't allow me to print the balance sheet with dates from 1/3/2011-28/2/2012. It will only llow me to print from March 2011 - Feb 2012.
It sounds, then, as though your financial year is set incorrectly - apart from one oddity in what you've said (which I'll come back to in a mo.)
ISTM that Sage thinks your year end is 31st January rather than 28th February. (When you set up, IIRC, it asks for the month in which your year *begins*, which would be March. It seems likely you entered February at that point.)
To confirm this, go to Settings => Financial Year. You should get a small box up showing the month and year that your financial year begins, but with the buttons to allow it to be set greyed out so that you can't change it. I suspect it'll say February 2011.
The only oddity is in your very last sentence; you want to be able to run it from 1/3/2011 to 28/2/2012, but it only allows you to do so from March 2011 to February 2012; those two periods are actually the same. I suspect you meant to January 2012, as per an earlier sentence in your post - but in both cases, you give the start date it'll run it from as March; if the start month is incorrect, as it now sounds, the start date it'll run from should be February.
Either way, I think you need to contact Sage under your support contract.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
Thank you for the information. I'm in the 3rd year of business but I'm behind on my accounts. The accounts that are due now, are well over due. It's for the second year which is March 2011- Feb 2012. Companies House have requested that they require accouts made up from 1/3/2011 - 28/2/2012. I checked the date and it is set to Feb 2011. When I put that date in I assumed it would end in March 2012. I'm able to change it but it's warning if my financial year date is changed, all nominal historical data (i.e prior year values) will be cleared. Are you sure you want to continue.
Does this mean if I change the date from here to March 2011 will I losse all the purchase invoices, sales invoices and bank payments that have been posted in my finiancial year or will it be safe to change the date and still be able to print the balance sheet for March 2011 -Feb 2012 and retain all the information?
No, the date you enter there is the *first* month of your financial year; so if you enter February 2011, you are telling it that your year runs FROM February 2011 TO January 2012; if you enter July 2010, your year runs from July 2010 to June 2011; and so on.
If you change it, the transactions themselves will remain as they are - there's no problem there. Things like prior year values are the monthly/yearly totals used in some reports for comparative purposes.
However, as I said, I've never actually had reason to make this change in Sage, so I'm not sure how it'll affect things given that it isn't your first year. I'd start by running the reports I said - Trial Balance, Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet, running them from "Brought Forward" to January 2012 (what Sage currently thinks is your year end). Take a full back-up. Change the start date to March 2011 per that menu entry. Run those same three reports again - from "Brought Forward" to January 2012, and compare them.
If the figures shown on the reports are the same before and after the change, I'd be inclined to say the change was successful and you can proceed. If the figures aren't the same, restore the backup (with the incorrect date) and contact Sage for advice on how to proceed.
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Vince M Hudd - Soft Rock Software
(I only came here looking for fellow apiarists...)
