Understanding the Menu Structure in Sage Pastel Partner

In this lesson we look at what functions are found under each menu item in Sage Pastel Partner.

This gives you a good “big picture” overview of how the program works.

All accounting programs work on these same principles i.e. they use the following sequence:

• You create a new company i.e. you will do this for each set of accounts / books you keep. Each company is separate from the other.
• You setup the company i.e. the different rules that will apply. For example, will your inventory be integrated or not, will open item or balance forward be used for customer and supplier accounts, and so on.
• You create the master data i.e. the general ledger accounts (Chart of Accounts), Customer accounts, Supplier Accounts, Inventory Items and Cash Books.
• You can then do transactional processing e.g. processing customer invoices, purchase orders, Good Receipts Notes, Credit Notes, Supplier Returns and so on.
• You can then run various reports to get information out of the system e.g. a Trial Balance or Customer Statements.

 

Video

 

Screenshots and Notes

File Menu – Pastel Partner

The File Menu is where you create new companies, delete companies, backup and restore them.

Each company is a separate set of books / accounts.

So when you open Pastel the first step is to make sure you are working in the right company.
 

Edit Menu – Pastel Partner

The Edit Menu is where you create and edit the Masterdata / Masterfiles for the company.

This includes adding (or editing) Customers (Debtors), Suppliers (Creditors), Inventory Items and General Ledger accounts.

You would do this as and when you need to e.g. when you have a new customer or a new inventory item that you are bringing into stock.

Adding or Changing MasterData doesn’t result in any financial transactions being processed so it won’t have a direct impact on the Trial Balance or Financial Statements of the company.

However, it needs to be setup before you can do any processing.

For example, if you want to process a sales invoice for a customer, before you can do so, you need the customer’s details on the system.

This includes details such as the customers name, the credit terms being offered to the customer, any settlement discounts and so on. All these things are part of the Customer Masterdata.

All of the inventory items being sold to the customer also need to be loaded on to the system before the invoice can be processed. The Inventory Masterdata will include details such as the item’s name, unit of measure and so on.

Similarly, before you can process purchases from any supplier you need the suppliers details to be loaded on to the system i.e. the supplier masterdata.

Only once the masterdata for a transaction is in place can the transaction be processed on the system.

 

Process Menu – Pastel Partner

The process menu is where the majority of the day to day work is done in Pastel in Pastel.

Here you will find functions to process the various types of transactions.

This includes:

• For Customers – Quotations, Tax Invoices and Credit Notes
• For Suppliers – Purchase Orders, Goods Received Notes (GRN’s), Supplier Tax Invoices and Return and Debit notes
• For Bank and Petty Cash accounts – Cash Book processing.

As Pastel is an integrated system, as you process these transactions it will automatically create the necessary postings to the General Ledger accounts.

 

View Menu – Pastel Partner

 

From time to time, you will need to get information out of the system.

You do this by running different reports that Pastel provides.

You will find these under the View Menu.

There are many different types of reports available including Customer Reports (such as an Age Analysis), Supplier Reports (such as Supplier Balances), Inventory Reports as well as the Trial Balance and Financial Statements.
 

Change Menu – Pastel Partner

 
The Change Menu includes various miscellaneous functions.

This includes running month end and year end processes i.e. changing the period the system is currently set to.

It also includes functions to make changes to Master Data and Setup related items e.g. changing from open item to balance forward and deleting inactive customers / suppliers.
 

Setup Menu – Pastel Partner

 
The Setup is normally done immediately after creating a new company.

This involves setting up the default rules e.g. when creating a new customer what should the default credit terms be, should the customer be processed on an open item or balance forward basis.

The Auto Setup is an assistant in Pastel which will take you step by step through each of these screens.

Favourites Menu – Pastel Partner

 
If you access certain functions often you can add them to the Favourites Menu so that you are able to access them more easily.
 

Help Menu – Pastel Partner

 
You can access various help functions for Pastel under the Help Menu.
 

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