Deleting Nominals and related transactions

[Klerky]

Hi,

I have Sage 50 Accounts Professional 2010 V16.0.4.113.

A long time ago I setup a number of nominals (3400-3498) to use for personal expenditure, these nominals were excluded from the COA.

The total balance of these nonimals is zero - although each Nominal has a large number of transactions against.

Is it possible to delete/archive these nominals and there transactions, off the current audit trail ?? - I understand once a nominal has transactions on it, you can't then delete the Nominal they sit on.

The Transactions do not run concurrently, with other transactions for nominals that were included in the COA sitting in between transactions on the 3400-3498 Nominals, so you could'nt clear the audit trail for a range of transactions, as you normally would (its been a while since I've done a anything like that - but think I remember that is one way you can clear transactions)

Could you duplicate the Company within Sage, delete all transactions, then delete the 3400-3498 nominals, and say start afresh from a new financial year ? maybe that is a sort of solution ...

Any help appreciated.
Thanks

[brucedenney]

When you clear the audit trail, you remove old transactions.

If there are no transactions on the account then you can delete it.

Have you cleared the audit trail?

[Klerky]

Hi Bruce,

No I have not cleared the Audit Trial.

I understand you cannot delete Nominals that still have transactions on them.

I guess I am asking if there is a way to do a 'Selective' clearing of the audit trail, ie clearing just transactions on a specific Nominal code, then deleting that code.

Thanks

[brucedenney]

It is not possible to do selective clearing by nominal code as all transactions interact with other nominal codes.

There is only one selection criteria and that the date.

Why don't you clear the audit trail and delete the nominals?

[Klerky]

Ok, I see your suggestion to clear the Audit trail then delete Nom codes as the way forward, I will run a Date Ranged Nom Act report to see who far back I need to go - to clear up to.

Thanks for the advice.

[brucedenney]

I suggest you clear the audit trail to a year before the start of the current financial year.

You can also delete all invoices, sales orders, purchase orders etc

the current year data set only needs the current year in it, keeping the prior year will enable you to deal with 95% of historical queries without even needing to open a company archive.

[Klerky]

I have read up on the Clear Audit trail function, I understand if there is any Cr or Db balance on Nominal Codes you want to delete, Sage still leaves a CF balance on the nominal after your run the routine.

Should I make the balance on Nominals I wish to delete zero before running the Clear Audit routine, I presume Sage will not let you delete a nominal code with any balance on it.

Thanks

[brucedenney]

You are correct.

You need to make sure that the account is zero, that all the transactions on the account have a date which is less than the date you are clearing to, that all the transactions have been bank reconciled, paid and have been put on a VAT return.

If any of these conditions are not met, the transaction will be retained.

So you need to backdate your transaction and account for the amount you are writing off, you will have to do this retrospectively in a previous year if you want to clear it now.

If you wrote off the accounts back when they became inactive this would not be an issue as it would have been done in a previous financial year and reported on in that previous year.

The problem is that you now need to do this and it has to be accounted for, as it has not been accounted for in previous years, it will have to be accounted for in this year. But you want to remove the transactions so it will disappear from this year when you do. So you will need to make a manual adjustment to account for it.

[Klerky]

Ok I have posted journals to zero out the nominals in question, and am ready to clear the audit trail however I have posted the journals as 01/04/2022, so as the YE22 routine has been run and is complete and submitted, this means I cannot clear the audit trail until YE25, if I wish to keep a year 'live'.

However i read a feature called 'archive' which I have never used, but looks like I could use it to 'isolate and freeze' previous years transactions, yet still be available to search ... which in itself would be good. But I can only see the 'archive' feature being availble in the Year End dialogue box, do you know if there is any otherway to access that ?

If I can 'archve' Previous years, which as far as I understand clears the audit trail, then I will be able to delete the nominals straight after doing this, but still be able to access all those cleared transactions via an archive.

Thanks

[brucedenney]

Unfortunately as you have not back dated the journal it can not be removed.

You could restore an earlier backup perhaps?

Archiving just makes a copy of the current data.

Clearing the Audit Trail is what removes transactions and they need to be dated before the cut off date, vat reconciled, bank reconciled and paid on the ledger account before they can be removed.

I have some tools that might enable me to fix it for you, but it would be chargeable and a fair bit of work, so perhaps you will have to wait. You can use the Inactive flag until then to hide the accounts from view and avoid accidentally using one.

[Klerky]

Hi Bruce,

Ok guess I will have to wait until April 2025, but thats not as far away as I thought.

I cant see this 'inactive flag' in the nominal details page, where would I find that.

Thanks

[brucedenney]

It is only available in the more recent versions.