I’m attempting to initiate new accounts while considering the closing balances from the past year.
When I’m setting up bank and cash accounts, I’m provided with the option to input opening balances. However, this option seems to be absent under the Profit and Loss Statement section in the Chart of Accounts. If I opt to create accounts under the Balance Sheet, I can indeed enter an opening balance.
How can I input opening balances for accounts like Sales?
Back in 2014, this query was raised, and although Lubos mentioned that “the latest version (14.2.6) now includes Opening balance field when creating or editing accounts in Chart of Accounts,” I’ve been utilizing this system for over two years and still don’t see the option to create a new account with an opening balance.
Our auditors have requested opening balances to facilitate comparison with the closing balances from the previous system.
As I lack an accounting background, I’m uncertain of any alternative methods. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated!
Below is the link for 2014 discussion
You cannot. Manager is a perpetual accounting system. So, if you are migrating from a prior accounting system, balance sheet accounts may require a starting balance that reflects prior transactions. And the program allows you to enter them. The Profit and Loss Statement, however, is for a defined period of time and reflects only transactions during that time period. So starting balances would make no sense, because they did not occur during your use of Manager. For this reason, you should always switch accounting systems at the beginning of an accounting period.
If you absolutely insist on beginning to use Manager part way through an accounting period, you should enter a summary transaction that records totals to date for income and expense accounts. If you do this, you will probably also need to make adjusting entries for your cash and bank accounts, or change their starting balances so everything balances.
If your accountants are not aware that income and expense accounts do not carry over from one accounting period to another, and therefore do not have starting balances, you should find new accountants.
Although the link is from a very old post the following quote is still relevant:
So if you are changing systems part way through the year take the year to date (YTD) P&L report and do a journal entry with a line for each individual income and expense account, with the balancing line (net profit/loss) to Retained earnings account. The balancing line in the journal to Retained earnings will be a debit for a profit or a credit for a loss. This seems counter intuitive, but the Retained earnings line represents a reversal, as this amount is contained in your balance sheet starting balances and the system will generate it again as a result of this journal.