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Sales Ledger Opening Balances - Nominal Ledger Settings

You should enter Sales Ledger opening balances in the form of Invoices and Receipts. Any Invoices and Receipts from the previous fiscal year that you enter should not be posted to the Nominal Ledger if you have already entered previous-year Nominal Ledger opening balances as described here. The Nominal Ledger opening balances include balances for the Accounts affected by Invoices (e.g. the Debtors Account) and so to post to those Accounts from opening balance Invoices is to post the same amounts twice. Therefore, before you can enter your Sales Ledger opening balances, you need to ensure that Invoices and Receipts from the previous fiscal year will not update the Nominal Ledger.

Using the [Module] button in the Master Control panel, ensure that you are in the Nominal Ledger. Click the [Settings] button, also in the Master Control panel, or use the ⌘-S keyboard shortcut. In the subsequent list, double-click 'Sub Systems'. The following window appears:

Specify by clicking the check boxes the records ("Sub Systems") that will update the Nominal Ledger automatically. In the illustration, for example, approving (marking as OK and saving) an Invoice dated later than 1/1/2011 will cause a Nominal Ledger Transaction to be created, debiting a Debtor Account and crediting a Sales Account and, if appropriate, a VAT Account. If the Invoice is dated earlier than 1/1/2011, a Nominal Ledger Transaction will not be created and so the Nominal Ledger will not be updated.

It is recommended that for each Sub System you enter the first day of your fiscal year. When you enter previous-year opening balances, use a date prior to the Sub System date. This will ensure that Nominal Ledger Transactions will be created when expected and that they will not be created for opening balances. If it takes longer than expected to enter opening balances, you can continue doing so and start to create new records without needing to worry about the consequences in the Nominal Ledger. For example, you can enter previous-year Invoices and Receipts (dated prior to the dates in the Sub System setting) at the same time as issuing new Invoices. The Sub Systems setting will ensure the Nominal Ledger is only updated when it should be.

If you are starting to use Standard Accounts in the middle of a fiscal year, you should already have entered the Nominal Ledger Transactions for the current year so far, as described on the Opening Balances in the Nominal Ledger page. If, as was recommended, you entered these from the original documentation and did not copy them from Transaction Journal reports produced from your old system, you will not have any current year Transactions that relate to your Sales or Purchase Ledgers. These will now be created automatically from the Invoices and Receipts (and Purchase Invoices and Payments) that you are about to enter, providing that they are dated later than the Sub System date (the first day of your fiscal year). If you did enter current year Transactions relating to your Sales or Purchase Ledgers as part of the previous exercise, you will not want them created again when you enter Invoices and Receipts. In this case, make the Sub System date later (a few days before the date when you will start originating transactions in Standard Accounts). This means you will be able to enter Invoices for the current year to date and to issue new Invoices simultaneously without needing to worry about the consequences in the Nominal Ledger.

If you are not certain whether you have entered current year Transactions relating to your Sales or Purchase Ledgers, produce a Trial Balance report for the current year and check the balances for your Sales, Purchase, Debtor and Creditor Accounts. If these are zero, you have not entered these Transactions. If they are the same as those on the Trial Balance produced from your old system, you have entered these Transactions already. Please refer to the Printing Reports page for instructions about printing a Trial Balance report.

Once the Sub Systems setting is to your satisfaction, save and close the window by clicking [Save] in the Button Bar.

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Note that if you have entered previous-year opening balances in the Nominal Ledger, you should not post any Sales or Purchase Ledger opening balances to your Nominal Ledger. To do so will duplicate the work you have already done and will immediately render your accounts inaccurate.


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