Clearing Data

Sage 50 Accounting stores your company data until you clear it or until the maximum retention age is reached. Clearing data periodically can make reports easier to interpret and simplify transaction lookups in the Search window.

Types of information that you can clear:

• Paid vendor and customer transactions. Removes the transaction information used in the Customer Aged and Vendor Aged reports.
• Account reconciliation. Removes the account information used in the Account Reconciliation reports.
• Deposit slips. Removes the transaction information used in the Deposit Slip report. Once cleared, you cannot look up or adjust these transactions.
• Imported online statements. Removes this information from the Imported Online Statements report.
• Inventory tracking. Removes the information used in the Inventory Transactions and Inventory Sales reports. When you clear this information, your company's purchase and sales invoice information is also cleared (see below).
• Purchase and sales invoices. Once cleared, you cannot look up or adjust these transactions.
• Other payments. Once cleared, you cannot look up or adjust these transactions.
• Remittance payments. Removes Payment column information from the Remittances report. Once cleared, you cannot look up or adjust these transactions.
• Time slips. Removes the transaction information used in the Time and Billing reports. Once cleared, you cannot look up or adjust these transactions.
• Direct deposits. Removes the information stored in the Upload Direct Deposit File window.
• Notes. Removes all of the notes stored in the Daily Business Manager.
• Paycheque details. Removes the information used in the Payroll and Cheque Log reports. This data is always cleared, at the age you specify. This data will be stored for a maximum of 6 years.
• Financial history. Removes the financial history information used in the Financial Statement and General Journal Entries reports. This data is always cleared, at the age you specify. This data will be stored for a maximum of 7 years or 100 years (Sage 50 Premium Accounting).
• Sales taxes. Removes the information used in the Tax report.

There are two ways to clear data from your company file, manually and automatically.

Clearing Data Manually

You can clear company data manually, at any time, from the Maintenance menu. When you clear data manually, you select an "As of" date or date range for which you want to clear specific information from your company data.

Clearing Data Automatically

You can set up Sage 50 Accounting to clear data automatically at fiscal year-end. When you set up Sage 50 Accounting to clear data automatically, you schedule regular purges of company data that has reached an age that you specify. You can even specify different ages for different types of information. The maximum age for data that you can automatically clear is 999 months with the following exceptions:

• Paycheque details can be kept for up to 7 years
• Financial history can be kept for either 7 or 100 years. (Sage 50 Premium Accounting)

Note: It is a good idea to discuss with your accountant the types of data you can clear to ensure that you do not remove vital accounting information.

What do you want to do?

Set up Sage 50 Accounting to automatically clear data at year end

Clear paid vendor transactions manually

Clear paid customer transactions manually

Clear account reconciliation data manually

Clear imported online statements manually

Clear inventory tracking data manually

Clear look up data for purchase or sales invoices manually

Clear look up data for other payments manually

Clear look up data for remittance payments manually

Clear look up data for time slips manually

Clear look up data for deposit slips manually

Clear notes from the Daily Business Manager manually

Clear paycheque details manually

Clear financial history manually

Clear sales taxes manually