Making corrections

Correcting an accounts entry

Brightpearl will allow you to amend an entry until it has either been reconciled with the bank account or reconciled for VAT.

There are two ways to get to the journal you need to correct:

1. Click a Brightpearl journal ID to take you to the details for the journal. The journal ID is to be found on the left hand column when in the search accounts screen, and also elsewhere in the accounting area.
2. Click Accounts -Tasks - Corrections and enter the required ID.

 

You will need to enter a reason for the correction, and the previous copy of the journal will be saved in the history to maintain an audit trail.

You can set your system up so that only certain members of staff are allowed to make corrections, using the Setup - Licences and permissions screen.

 

Journals that can't be corrected

If you've reconciled part of a journal against a bank statement, then that entry cannot be changed. In a similar way, if a journal has been reconciled on a VAT return, then it's locked and you can't edit it.

 

Cancelling a transaction completely

To undo an accounting entry, you need to zero it off. You can't delete journals for audit reasons, but you can clear it away:

1. Open the correction screen for the journal
2. Click "cancel journal"

This will remove all invoice references, zero the amounts and move the nominal codes to 9999 Suspense account. The previous version of the journal will be in the audit trail.

 

Things to watch out for

Don't put a Sales Invoice on a supplier, or a Purchase Invoice on a customer.

Don't duplicate the same Sales Invoice refernce for a customer. Two different customers can share the same reference (though this shouldn't happen unless you're putting bad data in) - same goes for suppliers - each supplier cannot have two Purchase Invoices with the same reference, otherwise the payment allocation screen won't work properly.

Don't just make a simple correction to mark an overpayment. You'll need to leave the payment value matching the invoice value, and add an extra row to the journal to record the overpayment as below.

 

Recording an overpayment after the allocation has been made

This is an example of how to use the journal correction screen. If you find yourself in the situation where an invoice becomes overpaid, you will see an error on the customer/supplier allocation screen. In this example, there's an invoice reference "PI-" which has had a sum total of 431.75 marked against it, which is 0.50 more than the original. This may occur from previous corrections.

There is an extra row in the journal correction screen to allow you to add a row to mark the excess as "payment on account".

The original Purchase Invoice of £431.25:

Journal ID			Invoice ref	Debit	Credit
1	PI	2100 Creditors account	PI-66		431.25
1	PI	5000 Purchase account	PI-66	431.25

 

The correct Purchase Payment would have two rows for clearing one invoice:

Journal ID			Invoice ref	Debit	Credit
2	PP	2100 Creditors account	PI-66	431.25
2	PP	1200 Bank account			431.25

 

Say that you find that when you're doing your bank reconciliation you find that 431.75 has been taken from your bank account. You'll need to make a correction. If the actual amount received was 431.75 not 431.25, you would need to add in the extra as follows - note the unique reference of "Accnt2" for the Payment on Account (0.50) - this will be used by Brightpearl to allocate future payments against the 0.50.

Journal ID			Invoice ref	Debit	Credit
2	PP	2100 Creditors account	PI-66	431.25
2	PP	2100 Creditors account	Accnt2	0.50		<< Inserted row
2	PP	1200 Bank account			431.75	<< Increased by 0.50

 

This leaves the original 431.25 to match against the invoice of 431.25, and leaves 0.50 on the supplier account. If you wanted to clear the 0.50, create a Quick credit for the supplier, and allocate it against the payment on account.