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Hello,
Just been granted a practice licence today, and may have also scored my first potential client...
It is a social club, who have not had a "proper" bookkeeper up until now, and are now under new management. They are sending last years accounts off to an accountant to be sorted (it was all a bit of a mess), and have asked me to set up their books from scratch for this year
My question is, do any of you have experience doing bookkeeping for a social club? Have you used accounting software to do the job, or just used manual methods/spreadsheets? They do not have any bookkeeping software at present, but have intuit (quickbooks) payroll software (one of their members is doing payroll until I pass my exams for this, then they may pass this over to me)
There does not seem to be an obvious template for a club/society in the sage instant accounts software I currently have (i.e. income and expenditure reports rather than profit and loss etc - but I don't know if this is changeable), and I am not sure whether it is worth buying more expensive software until I get a few more clients!
Any and all advice for a newbie would be most appreciated!
Cheryl
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Cheryl
The chart of accounts in Sage can of course be changed to be appropriate for a social club.
The first important thing to find out is what the club and the accountant wants.
Also does it have a bar, fruit machines etc.
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Adriansaid:
“Cheryl
The chart of accounts in Sage can of course be changed to be appropriate for a social club.
The first important thing to find out is what the club and the accountant wants.
Also does it have a bar, fruit machines etc.
”
Thanks for the reply Adrian,
The club basically just wants to have a balance sheet to be able to display on the noticeboard and to know its financial position. I would be preparing an updated balance sheet regularly
I have yet to find out what is going to happen with the accounts from last year which the accountant would have to sort out, the new management took over in November, and the accountant would be sorting out the mess that accumulated prior to that date.
Its income streams are: bar, pool table, jukebox and hall hire as well as lottery tickets and subscriptions.
The bit I couldn't get how to do in Sage is set it up so that there was a separate trading account for the bar, then feed in that profit figure to the income and expenditure account (and how to change the title from profit and loss to income and expenditure)
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Cherylsaid:
“Adriansaid:
“Cheryl
The chart of accounts in Sage can of course be changed to be appropriate for a social club.
The first important thing to find out is what the club and the accountant wants.
Also does it have a bar, fruit machines etc.
”
Thanks for the reply Adrian,
The club basically just wants to have a balance sheet to be able to display on the noticeboard and to know its financial position. I would be preparing an updated balance sheet regularly
I have yet to find out what is going to happen with the accounts from last year which the accountant would have to sort out, the new management took over in November, and the accountant would be sorting out the mess that accumulated prior to that date.
Its income streams are: bar, pool table, jukebox and hall hire as well as lottery tickets and subscriptions.
The bit I couldn't get how to do in Sage is set it up so that there was a separate trading account for the bar, then feed in that profit figure to the income and expenditure account (and how to change the title from profit and loss to income and expenditure)
”
I do the accounts for a theatre group (registered charity) & just use a spreadsheet, which is certainly adequate for reporting income and expenditure in the different areas - building costs, play activity, hire bookings, membership etc. - & is probably more flexible than Sage or Quickbooks, since you can define it exactly as you wish.
Remember "Statement of Financial Position" rather than "Balance Sheet" is now the preferred term!
If you want to use Sage, though, you can create "Departments" e.g. for Bar or Subscriptions, which allows you to code relevant income and expenditure to this department, then you can run reports (through the nominal) either for the club as a whole or by specific department, so you can produce an income and expenditure report e.g. just for the bar.
Hope this helps!
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Thanks Stevo,
I would be a little bit worried with spreadsheets about what happens if one of the formulas was wrong, or if data was entered in the wrong cells etc. and how easy it would be to find these mistakes
Do you find this is quite error prone?
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Cherylsaid:
“Thanks Stevo,
I would be a little bit worried with spreadsheets about what happens if one of the formulas was wrong, or if data was entered in the wrong cells etc. and how easy it would be to find these mistakes
Do you find this is quite error prone?
”
Obviously, that is a risk, but I haven't found it a problem (maybe I'm very accurate!)
I guess it depends on how many transactions you will have - I get only 12-15 per month, so it is relatively easy to control. Also, there is always a risk of coding incorrectly in Sage, though you should pick this up when doing your monthly accounts. I suppose I was saying "don't use a sledgehammer to crack a nut," i.e., don't use an accounts software package and possibly get tied into its inflexibility, unless it gives you some benefit.
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- Member PM.Dip
- Practice Licence
- 33 posts
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Hi Cheryl,
It was lovely talking to you today - as I said on the phone, I have been using VT transaction + for a local scout group, which has worked quite well for me.
It's always nice to talk to local ICB members, I have been attending the London branch meeting which I find invaluable for tips and advise - perhaps you would like to come with me next time?
In the meantime, you have my email address, so don't hesitate to contact me if I can be of any help.
Good luck with the club, and congratulations!
Ann
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Hi Stevo,
You are right of course. I suppose it is somehow more comforting to me to have a piece of software that does it for you, but it is just as easy to get that wrong.
Plus I already have Microsoft Office, so it won't cost me anything to get started, and I have more control to set up the accounts. Just seems a little intimidating to start with to do it from scratch. Maybe the best option whilst I gain some confidence and experience could be to continue with the manual single entry books they use currently whilst I set up excel or some software solution in the background, that way I will only use it in anger once I am comfortable with it.
Thanks for the replies, its great to be able to talk to other more experienced bookkeepers about things.
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Ann Marie Spickettsaid:
“Hi Cheryl,
It was lovely talking to you today - as I said on the phone, I have been using VT transaction + for a local scout group, which has worked quite well for me.
It's always nice to talk to local ICB members, I have been attending the London branch meeting which I find invaluable for tips and advise - perhaps you would like to come with me next time?
In the meantime, you have my email address, so don't hesitate to contact me if I can be of any help.
Good luck with the club, and congratulations!
Ann ”
Hi Ann,
Didn't see your post until after I posted...didn't mean to snub you!
Have emailed you now
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Ann Marie great job adverting the London group 
Cheryl please take Ann Marie up on her kind offer and come along to our next meeting that is on the last wednesday of this month.
With regards to using excel you will find if you set the workbook up correctly it can also do the bank rec for you giving you a good double check the main issue will then be miscoding which can be done no matter what system you use.
Kind regards
Stuart
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I have already mailed Ann about the meeting, and we are hoping to have a gossip on the train on the way up there :)
Stuart, is there any way you can give me an example of a good template/workbook set up from excel? I am taking Ann and Kris' advice and having a look at VT transaction + tonight, but an example of a workbook would be great. I have done quite a few ledgers in Excel for my assignments during my manual bookkeeping courses, but I don't know whether they would stand up to use in anger rather than a token "pretend" month's worth of transactions!
Cheryl
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Hi Cheyl
I will be on site on saturday where I use Excel to run the books as the behest of the owner (it is a 1.5m turnover business will about 150 to 250 tranactions a month).
Kind regards
Stuart
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Stuart Wildmansaid:
“Hi Cheyl
I will be on site on saturday where I use Excel to run the books as the behest of the owner (it is a 1.5m turnover business will about 150 to 250 tranactions a month).
Kind regards
Stuart ”
Sorry, I think you misunderstood my meaning in that comment...rather than me thinking excel couldn't handle it (I was a scientist in my previous professional life and have analysed millions of data points in excel, you can push it quite a long way without it falling over!), I meant that I am not sure I would set up a template correctly, and wouldn't want to set it up badly, then struggle to fix it and cause errors in formulas by moving around cells/changing the data capture area for totals columns etc.
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Jut looking at that comment again, it may come accross as rude, not meant in that way at all.
I should learn to re-read the whole message BEFORE I press send!
Cheryl
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Hi Cheryl
Sorry for the delay in replying but it slow going whilst having to mop away the tears lol <------- only joking there was nothing rude in your first reply I should have been clearer that the spreadhseet template I will send is being used for a buiness that is probably a little more complex than the setup for the social club however it will give you a good start point.
If you let me have your e-mail addy I will send you the template that will give you an idea of how I set up the sheet to give me the checks and balances.
my e-mail addy is stuart.wildman@wellersaccountants.co.uk
Kind regards
stuart
Edited at 01 Feb 2012 09:52 PM GMT
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Hi Stuart,
I sent you an email as you suggested, but haven't had any reply. If that is just because you haven't got around to it, fair enough, but just wanted to check you had got my email and it didn't get stuck in a spam filter or I have typed in the wrong email address or something!
Ta muchly
Cheryl
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> Hi Cheryl
I don't think your mail did come through do you want to try again stuartwildman@yahoo.co.uk
Kind regards
Stuart
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Hi Stuart,
I have sent you another email, let me know if you get it!
cheryl
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