When you set up your Chart of Accounts in Sage you probably used the default chart of accounts and then added other nominal accounts to suit your business. You are probably aware that Sage only allows accounts of a particular type to be given a number appropriate to that type. For example, all Sales accounts must fall into the range 4000 to 4999.

When preparing the year-end accounts from your Sage data we have to ensure that most of your transaction postings have been made to the correct nominal accounts e.g. rent has been posted to the Rent account.

We review the totals on each account and examine any accounts which are not in line with the previous year or look like they could be wrong in any way. We do not check each transaction posting individually.

When we look at the Suspense and Mispostings accounts we check that the balances on these accounts are zero. If not, then we have to examine each transaction and make journal entries to ensure that the balances do become zero.

We also look at what has been posted to General or Miscellaneous expenses and reanalyse any large items or other items which should have gone to a more specific account.

So the less work we have to do in this area then the better your “grading” will be.