How Tradebox Determines Which Nominal Code to Use in Sage

Siobhan Bales

April 4, 2025

September 24, 2025

When integrating Tradebox with Sage 50, one of the most important aspects to understand is how sales transactions are assigned to nominal codes. These codes play a vital role in your accounts, as they determine where each sale is recorded in your profit and loss report and the detailed nominal reports that support it. Tradebox offers a range of options for setting nominal codes, allowing you to customise Sage reporting to suit the way your business operates.

The Default Behaviour

By default, Tradebox will look for a nominal code on the Sage product record. If you are not using products, for example when creating service invoices, it will instead use the nominal code specified in the sales channel settings within Tradebox. This means that every sale will be recorded with an appropriate nominal, no matter what type of invoice you are raising.

The Order of Precedence

When multiple nominal settings are present, Tradebox follows a strict order of precedence. The setting with the highest priority will be used. The order is as follows:

1. Global postings
2. Nominal per shipping country
3. Nominal per shipping region
4. Override product nominal or sales nominal for service invoices
5. Nominal from Sage product record (this does not apply to service invoices)

Using the Sage Product Record

If you are using stock control in Sage, each product record includes a sales nominal code. This will default to the setting found in Settings followed by Product Defaults, but you can change this on a product by product basis or in bulk using Sage’s batch change or product import features.

When raising product invoices or sales orders, Tradebox will use the nominal from each product record by default. This method is particularly useful if you want your reporting to reflect the types of items being sold. For example, a stationery business might record all pen sales under nominal code 4005 and all notepad sales under 4006.

Service Invoices and Sales Nominals

If you are creating service invoices, no product records are used in Sage. In this case, Tradebox will post the sale using the sales nominal set in the Sage 50 area of each sales channel.

Override Product Nominal

Rather than reading each individual product record, you can choose to override the product nominal by ticking the appropriate box in the sales channel settings. This forces all sales through that channel to post to a single nominal code. This is useful if you want to report based on where sales are coming from, such as having all eBay sales recorded under nominal 4005 and all webstore sales under 4006.

Nominals by Country or Region

You can also set a specific nominal code and department for sales based on the shipping country or region. This is especially helpful if you are VAT registered in multiple countries or close to VAT thresholds in certain areas. It allows you to track and report on sales by destination, which is useful for tax and performance analysis.

Global Postings

Global postings allow you to simplify your Sage ledger by combining all items on an invoice or sales order into a single transaction. This means all lines use the same nominal code, department, and tax code. It is best used when all items share the same tax treatment. If you sell a mix of VAT and non VAT items, it is better to use the override product nominal option instead.

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