How To Perform Month End in Sage 50

This guide explains the Month End option in Sage 50cloud Accounts including the postings and how to run it. At the end of each month there may be regular postings that you want to make to account for prepayments, accruals and the depreciation of company assets. To save you time at the end of each month, in Sage 50cloud Accounts you can set these up to post automatically as journal transactions.

Month End is an optional procedure which you can use to:

• Clear the month to date turnover values from your customer and supplier records.
• Enter a lock date to prevent posting further transactions into the previous month.
• Process any automatic month end postings you’ve set up – Sage 50cloud Accounts.

When do I need to run a month end in Sage 50?

Depending on how you use Sage Accounts, you may not need to run the Month End option.

You only need to run it if any of the following apply:

• You run reports that use the month to date values, or if you check the month to date values in the customer or supplier records.
• You’ve set up automatic accruals or prepayments
• You’ve set up fixed asset records with depreciation rates

To ensure your month end reports are accurate, you should ensure all processing for the month is complete before running Month End. If you process your month end and then post transactions in a previous month, you must run your management reports again for that month.

Month End Postings in Sage 50

When you run Month End, you can choose to do the following:

• Clear turnover values: This clears the month to date values within the customer record > Sales tab, and the supplier record > Purchase tab.
• Post prepayments: Any prepayments you’ve set up are posted for the month.
• Post accruals: Any accruals you’ve set up are posted for the month.
• Post depreciation: Any fixed asset depreciation you’ve set up is posted for the month.

Preparing for The Month End in Sage 50

1. Check that you’ve posted all transactions for the month.
2. If you use the Product Valuation report, run this report now. You can’t run this report retrospectively as any movements in stock during the new month affect the values. Therefore to produce accurate values you must run it on the last day of the month.
3. If you use recurring entries, ensure you’ve processed all entries for the month.
4. If you use Foreign Trader, revalue your foreign currency bank accounts using the Foreign Bank Revaluation Wizard. You can run the foreign bank revaluation in the Month End window.
5. Run Check Data. If there are any errors in your data you must fix these before you continue.
6. Create a backup of your data files and store it in a safe place. Label this backup ‘Before Month End’. You can run Check Data and Backup within the Month End window.
7. Optional – Reconcile all your bank accounts with your actual bank statements
8. Optional – To ensure that your profit and loss and balance sheet reports are correct, post your monthly opening and closing stock journals.

How to Run Month End in Sage 50

Firstly, click Tools then click Period End and click Month End. Complete the Month End window as follows:

• Check Data: If you haven’t already, run this option to check your data for any problems. If there are any errors in your data you must fix these before you continue.
• Backup: If you haven’t already, run this option to take a backup of your data.
• Revaluation: If you use Foreign Trader and you haven’t done so already, use this option to revalue your foreign bank accounts.
• Set the month end date: Enter your month end date.
• Prevent new transactions before this date: If you want to prevent users from posting into previous period select this option and enter the required date.
• Set your month-to-date turnover to zero: To clear the values in the M.T.D. box within the customer record > Sales tab and supplier record > Purchase tab, select this option.
• Prepayments: To post your automatic prepayments, select this option.
• Accruals: To post your automatic accruals, select this option.
• Depreciation: To depreciate any assets set up within fixed assets, select this option.

Lastly, click Run Month End then click Yes and click OK.