Time saving tips for using Sage Pastel Partner

Use these tricks to save you time with Pastel Partner

1. Avoid cost of sales problems when processing to negative quantities

Because Pastel Partner allows inventory quantities to fall below zero, it is important that the system is setup correctly, for the correct calculation of the cost of sales value to take place. Normally inventory items would be created, quantities and costs entered then processed on an invoice. With items containing negative quantities, the cost is not processed into the system (either via a GRN/Supplier invoice or Inventory journal), therefore the cost of sales account will not be affected.
To work around adjusting the cost without bringing in inventory quantities, enter the item cost in the Last Unit field so that the average cost gets adjusted as per the screenshot below.

This adjustment should be done before any processing is done to this item because Pastel calculates the cost of sales at the time of sale. The average cost of the item should be 0, otherwise the last unit cost will not update the average cost.

To make this adjustment, click on Edit | Inventory | Item File and type in the cost in the Last Unit field at the bottom of the screen. A message will display warning you that the average cost will be adjusted, click Yes. Note that users will not be able to change this if the inventory item is on an open batch.

2. Turning off the user account control in Windows 7

To turn off the User Account Control setting in Windows 7, go to the Control Panel on your computer and ensure that your View By option is set to Category.

Click on User Accounts and then again on the option User Accounts.

In the next menu in the User Accounts settings click on Change User Account Control Settings.

In the User Account Control Settings window, by default the slider on the left is in the second from the top position. Click and drag this slider down to the Never notify option and then click on the OK button on the bottom right. You will be prompted to reboot the PC at this time.

3. Saving a logo on the network

Pastel Partner’s forms designer allows users to be able to insert logos onto their customised forms. It is important to save the logo and the form in the correct place for it to be accessed by all the users on the network.

For this to work properly, the form needs to be saved in the company folder (on the server) and the logo needs to reside on the same directory (path) on all the computers (including the server if it uses Pastel), eg. C:\Pastel09\Custom\Forms.

Once the logo is saved on the correct directory, then from each workstation one needs to open the form and re-select the logo pointing it to the file saved on the local drive (eg C:\). This will ensure that the logo prints on the form.

4. Price search shortcut

One of the lesser known features in Pastel Partner is the price search. Users can view information a range of information for individual items such as quantity on hand, different price lists, quantity on sales/purchase orders, bin number, etc. This can be viewed by either entering the item code or the barcode of the item.

To access this feature simply click on the F4 button on the keyboard and it will automatically pop up.

5. Easy reversal of receipts

There may be instances when a receipt processed in the Receipting Module would need to be reversed for various reasons. This can be done easily with the Receipt Reversal Assistant.
Note though that only receipts that have been processed in the current session can be reversed. Once the Deposit Assistant has been run, the reversal needs to be processed on the cashbook as a negative receipt.

To reverse receipts, go to Process | Receipts | Receipt Reversal Assistant.

On the Receipt Reversal Assistant you will be prompted to enter the receipt number and click on Next.

Click on Process for the receipt to be reversed. All relevant reports will show this reversal.

6. Transactions showing in red in the bank reconciliation

Transactions display in red text in the Bank Reconciliation screen in the following reasons:

Either, the entry was processed with the reverse of the expected sign. An example of this would be when a receipt is processed with a negative sign in the receipts batch of the cashbook – as in image below.

Or when a payment and receipt were processed using the same reference numbers, as shown in this graphic.

7. Cashbook processing

When processing entries in the cashbook, you are able to insert a new line anywhere in the batch by clicking on the Insert button on the Payments or Receipts screen. You may also select CTRL+I on your keyboard as a shortcut. A new line will be inserted above the line that the cursor is currently on – see example below.

This is useful when trying to group certain transactions together. For example, a user may prefer to have all supplier payments listed together instead of at different positions within the batch.

8. Show item serial numbers on customer and supplier documents

Customers and suppliers sometimes prefer to see the different serial numbers of the items purchased/sold on the documents. You are able to setup your different customer and supplier documents, for different users to accommodate this.

To set this up, go to Setup| Customers or Suppliers| Documents. Select the necessary document to reflect the serial numbers, e.g. customer invoice, credit note, goods received note, supplier invoice, etc. Select the user applicable and tick the option Print Serial Numbers and click on OK.

The serial number prints on the document selected below the item description. See example of a customer invoice below.

9. Preventing out of period processing on cashbooks, journals and documents

Pastel Partner works with financial periods so it is important to ensure that the date being processed to corresponds with the period. Users sometimes process to a date that is not within the range of the period selected, in which case a warning message will appear.

This affects age analyses displaying incorrectly, bank reconciliations not balancing and imbalances on financial reports. Various reversals need to be processed to correct this.

To prevent these unnecessary frustrations, you are able to set users so that the period cannot be changed.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Go to Setup| Entry Types
• Select the relevant entry type e.g. the entry type Sales would be for Customer Invoices and Sales Journal
• Select the option Date Sets Period

This means that whenever a user selects a date, the period will then default to the period that the date falls into; the period will be greyed out and cannot be changed.

10. Tax type end dates

Set the end dates for your different tax types to a future date to avoid errors when processing.

To make this adjustment, go to Setup | Tax | Percentages. Change the End date to a future date. This will prevent receiving the error that the tax type has expired, when processing documents.