Hi all,

Looking for the best way to record some minor expenses incurred in my personal expenditure before the company was formed.

I've seen a post on here that recommended recording it as a Director's Loan, but these are minor costs - licence applications, DBS checks - things for under £50, and so ideally I'd just record them as owing and pay myself back once the company's up and trading, rather than wait until turning a profit. All receipts are available.

So, expenses incurred on 1 August. Limited company registered mid-September. Trading due to start 1 November.

I'm thinking it's along the lines of:

• Setup the company on Sage with a year-end lockdown of 1 August, but an accounts start date of mid-September (company incorporation)
• Add the expenses with their 1 August date, as though paid to the actual suppliers - and add in manual line notes that it's to be paid back to me directly
• Have these showing as unpaid invoices until I'm trading (because they're not really 'unpaid', so no rush), pay myself out of the business bank account once trading, and link those lines to the unpaid invoices.

Is there anything wrong with this approach? I got a little confused about opening balances, but as it's a brand new company and not transferring from a previous accounting system or similar, I thought surely the opening balance should be £0. It feels like it may be a little messy but there's not a lot of these expenses, and the associated notes against any line won't be difficult to work out.

Thanks in advance for any advice.