Entering Opening Balances |
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Once your data has been converted, you will be required to enter the opening balances for each General Ledger account. To do this, you will need to obtain a Trial Balance report from your previous system the morning of your conversion. This will ensure that the figures are accurate, and that your converted data should match.
You must verify your opening Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable balances with the converted A/R and A/P Aging reports. This verification is critical; if these balances do not match, your reports will never match going forward. Any adjustments that need to be made to match should be made in your previous system. You should also verify your opening Inventory balance with your converted Inventory Value Report.
Opening balances are entered as a journal entry for each account. This journal entry should be dated the day before your conversion to ensure that it always appears as the first transaction on the account.
To enter your Opening Balances follow the easy steps below. Be sure that your A/R, A/P, and Inventory totals match your converted data. If there are any discrepancies, they need to be corrected via journal entries in your previous system.
1.Starting from the main screen, select Accounting > General Ledger > Journal Entry. The system will select a Regular Journal Entry as default.
2.Select the calendar period that your entry will be recorded for by enter the month and year in the Calendar Period MMYY field, then press Tab. The corresponding fiscal period will display in the Fiscal Period MMYY field.
3.Enter the desired date of the transaction in the Transaction Date field, then press Tab. This should be the day before your conversion began.
4.Then enter "Opening Balance" in the Description field and press Tab.
5.Now enter a reference number for the entry in the Reference Number field and press Tab. You can also click on the Next button to the right of the field, and the system will generate the next available reference number for the entry.
6.Now it is time to enter the balance amounts. Enter the General Ledger account into the G/L Account field and press Tab. You can also search for the correct account by entering part of the reference number or account name into the field and pressing Tab. The system will then display a list of options to select from.
7.Enter the debit or credit amount in the appropriate field and press Tab. You will see the Control Total change to reflect your entry.
8.Repeat steps 6 and 7 for each of your General Ledger accounts until you have entered all of the opening balances and the Control Total displays a balance of zero.
9.Then, click the Save button in the bottom toolbar to save the General Journal entry and post the balances to the General Ledger. |