Initial/Opening/Beginning balances. How to do that?

Using a Balance Sheet that ends your existing accounting system, you can then do the following:

  1. Login to FA as an admin.
  2. Create a Fiscal Year that is one year before the one you created when you started. (So if you started January 1, 2015, create a fiscal year starting January 1, 2014.)
  3. Set the Company to use this year in Company Setup.
  4. Check if you have all the same GL accounts in FA as the ones listed on your Balance Sheet from your old accounting system. If they do not all exist in FA, then create them. Also create Bank Accounts for your GL bank accounts and Cash accounts. Write them down so you can easily find them later.
  5. Go into Journal Entry in Banking and General Ledger. Set the date to be the last of the year (e.g. December 31).
  6. Enter the lines from the Balance Sheet one by one. You should end up with a 0 difference because the debits and credits should equal on your Balance Sheet.
  7. Save the Journal Entry.
  8. Set the normal Fiscal Year on the Company again and you are done.
  9. System names for Class Types are in includes/sysnames.inc for chart_class.ctype field.
  • You must be logged in as admin to have access to the underlying bank accounts in the Journal Entry
  • Setup -> Access Setup -> System Administrator -> Banking & GL Transactions. Check the row: Journal Entries to Bank Related Accounts. That should allow it.
  • Be sure to have created the GL Bank Accounts and the Bank Accounts
  • In Bank Accounts and enter the relevant GL Bank Account.

Advanced

If you have stock (Inventory) and you know the material cost/purchase price for the items:

  1. Set the former fiscal year on the Company again.
  2. Go into Items and Inventory.
  3. Create your Items one by one (or import them by using one of the modules from Download page).
  4. Use the Inventory Adjustment form to set the initial stock and material price one by one line.
    Use the last day of the year (like before e.g. December 31)
  5. Save the adjustment.
  6. This will, besides update the stock quantity and material cost, also create a GL entry into Inventory (hopefully corresponding to existing inventory balance)
  7. This will also create a credit entry into the Inventory Adjustment Account.
  8. You will need to create a reverse GL journal entry with these 2 adjustment lines and the same date.
  9. This will get the stock quantity and average material cost updated for all items.

If you have AR/AP records (not settled yet), this is more complicated.

  1. Set the former fiscal year on the Company again.
  2. You will have to enter the unsettled records in Sales, Direct Invoice and Supplier, Supplier Invoices, one by one (by the last day of the fiscal year) and you must enter them as service items (to not intervene with the stock transactions above. And you must also enter them as tax-free entries. These entries have been done already in the former system.
  3. You will end up with AR and AP balances that should match the Balance Sheet, and also GL entries for Sales and Cost of Goods Sold.
  4. You will need to create a reverse GL journal entry for all these transactions (the sum of them).
  5. This will get the AR and AP ledgers updated as well as the GL Balances.
  • A better way in some instances is described in this post.

These instructions are given without warranty. There might be Accountants out there having better ideas. If so, please share them with us.