How do I enter an opening trial balance?
Summary
If you are a new customer to Platinum, or are using our accounts for the first time, you will need to journal in all of the balances from your current profit and loss and balance sheet into Platinum. The figures can be obtained from your existing accounts system or from your accountant, and is generally referred to as an opening trial balance. The following article explains the process required.
More Information
Posting the Opening Trial Balance
The opening trial balance can be extracted from your existing accounting system or provided by your accountant. The balances need to be entered onto the Nominal Ledger using Journal Entries.
- Set the "Entry modes" to 'Multiple'
- Set "Reversing?" to 'No'
- Enter the date at which the figures have been taken. Depending on how your system is set up, this will be the last day of the relevant month, or the first day of the following month.
- Enter each centre from the Trial Balance, ignoring Sales Control, Purchase Control and Profit to Date for now.
- Enter each value from the trial balance sheet as a positive amount in the debit or credit column.
- Enter an appropriate comment such as 'Op. Bal.'.
- Once all the centres are on, post the balance remaining to Z995 – Profit To Date. This should be the figures for the Debtors and Creditors.
 | The Nett amount for the journal should always be 'Zero.' |
| The values for Sales and Purchase Control should have been reached by posting the Opening Balances onto each individual Customer and Supplier Account through the Sales and Purchase Ledgers. |
If you find any differences between the opening values for the Sales and Purchase Control centres, and the opening balances you have posted onto the Sales and Purchase ledgers, try to identify where the differences are e.g. have you posted a new invoice as an opening balance which wasn’t in the Sales or Purchase Control when the opening balances were calculated; has the accountant written any debts off as bad debts; have you paid any invoices again which were unpaid when the balances were calculated etc. Make any corrections through the Sales or Purchase Ledgers or contact Software Support for help if you are unsure how to proceed.
 | DO NOT journal into or out of Z993/Z994 (Purchase/Sales Control) in order to correct these differences. These centres are for system postings ONLY. |
- Print a trial balance to check the figures against the list that you were using.
See also
- What do I do if my Trial Balance Doesn't Balance?
- What should I consider at month end?
- How to process a month end
