Excel » Happy Accountant: Accounting Blog & Online Accountant

Choosing Bookkeeping/Accounts Software
* Choosing bookkeeping or accounting software for your business or organisation is a big step. There is so much available on the market, with new vendors and products coming out all the time. So, how do you decide which is the best for you? How much you are prepared to pay? There is such range of [read more]
The Consequences of Being Inside IR35
*The financial consequences of being inside IR35 are mainly (there are other consequences) you lose the tax-avoidance facility of dividends. Essentially, if you are within IR35, you must calculate a “deemed payment” and pay NICs and PAYE (tax) on that deemed payment. The tax-deductible amounts that you can claim in travel and expenses will also [read more]
When to Register as an Employer
*As soon as you take anyone on where any of the following conditions apply, you need to register with HMRC as an employee. the employee already has another job the employee receives a pension (state or occupational) the employee will earn at or over the PAYE (tax) threshold the employee will earn at or over [read more]
SAGE VAT codes
*Sage uses the following codes for VAT: T0 – zero rate VAT T1 – standard rate VAT T2 – exempt (eg. stamps, insurance, aire fares, bank charges, financial services T4 – EC Sales T5 – lower rate VAT (eg. electricity, gas, women’s sanitary products) T9 – not involving VAT/outside scope of VAT (eg. suppliers that [read more]
Registering for VAT and Keeping VAT records
*You must register for VAT with HMRC. This can be done using a paper form or online. Once registered, you generally have to keep reocrds of: the VAT you charge on your sales (output VAT) the VAT you have paid on your purchases (input VAT) the total amount of sales excluding VAT the total amount [read more]
Using Excel for Accounts and Bookkeeping
*The great thing about MS Excel (and others say it’s greatest downfall) is that it is so adaptable and because it normally comes bundled with the PC you bought for your business, it’s cheaper than buying accounting software. For start ups and possibly for the sole trader or small limited company, it’s a very easy way of keeping track [read more]
Why have an Accountant?
*Because… Doing the accounts takes you away from your real business An accountant could do the job quicker and more accurately An accountant could save you money in the form of tax-savings as well as sometimes finding other areas for savings and efficiencies. Professionally produced year end accounts will be taken more seriously by banks and [read more]
What is the Difference between Bookkeeping and Accounting?
*The two really overlap: Bookkeeping is part of accounting. It is the recording of the day to day transactions of a business – either in “manual” books, or on computer software or spreadsheets. Therefore, bookkeeping can play an important role in the efficient running of a business: Purchase Ledger – A business needs to pay [read more]
Simple Bookkeeping
*You need three basic “books” (or ledgers): – a cashbook to record all cash/cheques/bank transfers going in and out of your business – a purchase ledger, to record details of all the purchases that you make – a sales ledger to record details of all the sales that you make (if you are a retail outlet, [read more]
Advantages of a limited company
*Obviously, the main attraction of forming a limited company is the “limited liability” of its owners, the shareholders, as it protects the personal assets of the owners. Should the company fail, the company is liable without limit for its own debts, but its shareholders’ liability is limited to the amount oustanding (if any) on their [read more]
What do you need to set up a company
*Essentially, before you begin, you need: a company name, which can be almost any name that has not previously been registered. a Director a Company Secretary (which cannot be the sole director) (or you could have two directors, one of whom could also act as Company Secretary) a shareholder (which can be either the director [read more]
Choosing Your Accountant
* Speak to your prospective accountant on the phone first and then, if you are still happy, set up an initial meeting – which should be free of charge. Ensure that they are professionally qualified and are current members of a professional body (Chartered Accountant (ICAEW/ICAS/ICAI), Chartered Management Accountant (CIMA), Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA) for [read more]

Simple Purchase Ledger in Excel III 27/06/2007 Simple Purchase Ledger in Excel III Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:15 am No Responses Accounting, Bookkeeping, Excel *To finish off this simple spreadsheet, it might be helpful to make it look slightly more presentable.Select Row 1 (by clicking on the 1) and then bring up the Format Cells dialog box (either by Menu\|Format, keyboard shortcut or right mouse button menu) and then you can make the text bold (Font tab), colour in [read more] Full Article	Simple Purchase Ledger in Excel II 26/06/2007 Simple Purchase Ledger in Excel II Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:20 am No Responses Accounting, Bookkeeping, Excel *To format the numbers (in columns D,E,F,H onwards) so that they all have 2 decimal places, select these columns (by clicking at the top (where the column letter is) and then chosing Format\|Cells and then (on the number tab) click number and make sure that there is a 2 in decimal places. I also check [read more] Full Article
Simple Purchase Ledger in Excel I 25/06/2007 Simple Purchase Ledger in Excel I Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:55 am No Responses Accounting, Bookkeeping, Errors, Excel *First begin by heading up the columns, in cell A1: date supplier ref/invoice number net amount (if registered for VAT, if not registered for VAT, then head this column “gross amount”) VAT (omit this if not registered for VAT) date paid check zero stationery (analysis column) postage (analysis column) telephone (analysis column) electricity (analysis column) [read more] Full Article	Daily Dose of Excel 22/06/2007 Daily Dose of Excel Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:20 am No Responses Excel, Random Friday Blog *I don’t normally have a lot of time to surf the net between work and family committments, but I have noticed Daily Dose of Excel, who have been kind enough to include the Happy Accountant in their extensive blogroll. The Daily Dose has been running since the start of 2004 and has lots of great tips [read more] Full Article
Simple Formulae 14/06/2007 Simple Formulae Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:20 am No Responses Excel *All formulae in Excel begin with an = sign. Suppose you wish to add the contents of cell A1 and A2 and display the answer in cell A3, put the formua into cell A3: =A1+A2 To add a column of numbers from A1 down to A10, and put the total in cell B1, you could put [read more] Full Article	Cell References 13/06/2007 Cell References Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:45 am No Responses Excel *Excel references each cell, co-ordinate style: With absolute references, letters denote columns and numbers are used for rows. Hence B4, is the second column along (from the left) and the fourth row down. (There is another style of cell referencing, called relative referencing) To reference a range of cells (for example, the column of cells [read more] Full Article
Menus, Toolbars, Mouse and Keyboard Shortcuts 12/06/2007 Menus, Toolbars, Mouse and Keyboard Shortcuts Posted by Happy Accountant at 9:35 am No Responses Excel *As with many other Microsoft applications, there are several ways of doing things. Excel’s commands can be accessed through the menubar at the top. Clicking the righthand mouse button, while the cursor is in a cell, brings up a mini menu of mainly formatting options. There are keyboard short cuts (such as [CTRL] and [SHIFT] and $ [read more] Full Article