Entering Opening Balances

Unless you are starting a new business and intend to use Standard Nominal Ledger to administer your accounts from the first day, you will need to enter some opening balances. If you are starting to use Standard Nominal Ledger at the beginning of the fiscal year, these opening balances will take the form of the closing balances for each Account for the end of the previous year. If you are starting to use Standard Nominal Ledger in the middle of the fiscal year, there will be two components to opening balance figures: the closing balances for each Account for the end of the previous year and Account balances for the current year to date.

To carry out this task, you should equip yourself with as much information as you can in the form of transaction data and reports produced by the old system, in order to make this task as easy as possible.

We recommend that you change during a current fiscal year. You should enter Account balances for the previous year and then enter individually all current year transactions registered so far. This will a) make you familiar with Standard Nominal Ledger, and b) automatically give you a check of the old transactions.

Before you can enter any opening balances, you should have specified the current and, if appropriate, previous fiscal years using the Fiscal Years setting and entered the Chart of Accounts and VAT Codes you wish to use. If you created your database using the 'Start with standard chart of accounts' option as described on the Starting any Standard product - New Installation page, it will contain the sample Chart of Accounts supplied with Standard Nominal Ledger. If this is not suitable, you can import your own chart from a text file or enter it manually.

Once you have entered your Fiscal Year, Chart of Accounts and VAT Codes, it's a good idea to enter all the opening balances at once. Ideally, this process should be completed before you start to enter new Transactions, but it is possible to change the opening balances at any time during the fiscal year.

When entering opening balances, the level of detail is up to you. Factors influencing this decision may be the number of Transactions, the time available to enter these Transactions and the level of detail required in your reports. It might be that you enter all Transactions individually or it might be that you enter a single opening balance for each Account. Full details covering the necessary data entry processes follow in the next sections.

Once you have entered your opening balances in their chosen form, print the reports you usually use and compare them with the reports from your old system. These reports should include the Trial Balance, Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet.

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Opening Balances

The task of entering opening balances can have two stages:
  1. You should enter balances for each Account as they stood at the end of the previous fiscal year. You can use the Brought Forward Balance register or the Transaction register for this task. This information should be available in the Trial Balance report obtained from your old system.

    You can enter a single opening balance figure for each Account, or you can divide the opening balance figure into individual postings. This decision may depend on the Account itself.

    The advantages of using the Brought Forward Balance register for this purpose are that you can save unbalanced Brought Forward Balance records, and you can return to a Brought Forward Balance record to change it. This allows you to enter opening balances as a gradual process, saving frequently.

    If you want to use the Brought Forward Balance register, refer to steps 1-6 below. If you want to use the Transaction register, please refer to the description here.

  2. If appropriate, enter the Transactions for the current year to date, using the Transaction register. Please refer to steps 7-12 below.
Once you have entered all balances and Transactions, print out a Trial Balance and compare it with that obtained from your old system. Any discrepancies should be investigated immediately: any delay will make this more difficult.

The following sections assume you have already defined a Chart of Accounts and a set of VAT Codes.

To enter Account balances as they stood at the end of the previous fiscal year to the Nominal Ledger using the Brought Forward Balance register, follow these steps:

  1. Click the [Brought Fwd Balances] button in the Master Control panel or use the ⌘-3 keyboard shortcut to open the Brought Forward Balance register.

  2. When the 'Brought Forward Balances: Browse' window opens, click [New] on the Button Bar to open a new record.

  3. Enter the information as shown in the following illustration. It is recommended that you choose a Transaction Date that is at the end of the previous fiscal year and that is, in any case, prior to the date when you will be starting work with Standard Nominal Ledger.

    If you are entering a single opening balance figure for each Account, use each row in the grid to enter these balances, taking the figures from the Trial Balance report produced by your old system. If you are entering opening balances as individual postings, enter each posting on a separate row. You can enter single opening balance figures for some Accounts, and individual postings for others.

  4. The Brought Forward Balance screen has 500 rows, allowing you to enter opening balances for up to 500 Accounts in a single record. If you need to enter a significant number of opening balances, it is recommended that you save the Brought Forward Balances record periodically, by clicking the [Save] button in the top right-hand corner. The record does not have to balance for you to save it. Account balances will be updated as soon as you save the record. However, if you discover a mistake at a later date, you will be able to correct the record without difficulty.

  5. If you run out of rows, click the [New] button (or use the ⌘-N keyboard shortcut). The Brought Forward Balances record will be saved and closed, and a new empty record will be opened, allowing you to enter more opening balances.

  6. Finish with [Save] when you have entered the last balance, and close the window by clicking the close box.
If you are starting to use Standard Nominal Ledger in the middle of a fiscal year, you should now enter the Transactions for the current year so far. You should enter these from the original documentation, not copy them from Transaction Journal reports produced from your old system. Follow these steps:
  1. Click the [Transactions] button in the Master Control panel or use the ⌘-1 keyboard shortcut to open the Transaction register.

  2. When the 'Transactions: Browse' window opens, click [New] in the Button Bar to open a new record.

  3. Enter the information as shown in the following illustration. Full details about the fields are to be found in the description of the Transaction register. Ensure you use the same Transaction Date that was used when entering the Transaction to your previous system.

  4. The Transaction screen does not have an OK check box, so Account Balances will be updated as soon as you save the Transaction. Therefore, before saving the Transaction, make sure that no mistakes have been made. One check is that the Debit and Credit totals are the same. Once you have saved the Transaction, you will only be able to change it by using one of the correction features.

  5. Click the [Save] button (or use the Shift-Enter keyboard shortcut) to save the Transaction. Alternatively, if you click the [New] button (or use the ⌘-N keyboard shortcut), the Transaction will be saved and closed, and a new empty record will be opened, allowing you to enter another Transaction.

    You can use another feature when you need to enter several Transactions quickly in one sitting and don't want to interrupt your typing by reaching for the mouse. Enter the debits in a Transaction first and then, with the cursor in the Credit field in the final credit row, press the Return or Enter key twice. The first pressing causes the correct credit amount to be entered for you, balancing the entry. The second saves, closes and commits the Transaction to the Nominal Ledger and opens a new, empty, Transaction.

  6. Finish with [Save] when you have entered the last Transaction, and close the window by clicking the close box.
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Printing Reports

You can produce many different reports from Standard Nominal Ledger. Detailed descriptions of each report can be found in the appropriate sections of these web pages, beginning here. You should, however, always print a Transaction Journal for the Transactions entered during one work session.

Having completed the process of entering your opening balances, you should now print a Trial Balance and compare it with a Trial Balance produced from your old system.

To print a Trial Balance, follow these steps:

  1. Click the [Reports] button in the Master Control panel. You can also use the ⌘-R keyboard shortcut.

  2. The 'Reports' list opens, showing the reports that you can produce from Standard Nominal Ledger:

  3. Choose 'Trial Balance' by double-clicking. You can also type the first few characters of the name of the report ("trial" for example) and then press the Enter or Return key. The 'Specify Trial Balance' window appears.

  4. To report on your opening balances, you should enter in the Period field a period from the beginning of the current fiscal year to the current date. Separate the start and end dates of this period using a colon (:), as shown in the illustration. You can leave all the other fields blank, ensuring that all Accounts etc will be included in the report.

  5. Use the Media options at the bottom of the window to choose a print destination (for example, 'Printer' or 'Screen'), and click the [Run] button to produce the report.

  6. If you printed to screen and now wish to print on a printer, simply click the Printer icon in the Button Bar of the report window.
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