Credit notes on Sage

[john_p]

Stumped. Had a duplicate invoice payment in from a customer which I entered as a payment on account. Unfortunately (!) they've now noticed and want their money back.

The customer account is very negative. It's not possible to post payments "to" a customer. So, I made a dummy invoice, allocated the duplicate payment against it, then made a credit note and credited the dummy invoice. No dice, it won't let me make payments against the credit note. What do I do? (does this even make sense)

[Eric Mc]

The best way to deal with this is -

i) raise a dummy Sales Invoice for this particular customer, making sure it is given a T0 or T9 VAT Code

ii) allocate the Sales Credit Note to the Nominal Ledger "Suspense" account(not "Sales"

iii) post the bank payment/cheque covering the refund to the customer to the "Suspense" account using the "Bank Payments" module

iv) "Allocate" the original excessive cash amount received from the customer against the dummy Sales Invoice

When all these postings have been carried out, you will have corrected the Sales Ledger account for the customer, cleared the Suspense account and posted the refund correctly from your Bank Account

No doubt there are a few other ways that the situation could be dealt with but the above definitely works as I've had to do it on quite a few occasions over the years.

As you have found out, Sage does not like unorthodox transactions against the Sales Ledger (or indeed, the Purchase Ledger). This is because they have special status within the Sage system as "Control Accounts". By using the Nominal Ledger "Suspense Account" as a "parking account", this allows you to get around these unusual transactions.

Edited by Eric Mc on Thursday 17th May 08:29

[Mrs Trackside]

I haven't used Sage for ages, but I'm sure there's a refund facility in the modules or wizards.

[Eric Mc]

I have a client who has used the Refund facility but he always seems to mess up his bank account (and sometimes his VAT) when he uses it - not to mention his overall Nominal Ledger.

I usually have to correct his errors and them go through the process outlined above.

[john_p]

Eric Mc, as always, I'm impressed by your knowledge. Thanks!