Opening Sales & Purchases Entries, which balancing account ?

Ikari

I've got a couple of files for migrating data from a legacy system into NAV 5.0
I know how to write the dataport to create a sales and purchase journal,
based on the open sales and purchase entries.

but I wonder which balancing GL account N° I should choose ?

If I choose the same one that will be setup into NAV when we're going live, then I will be getting
some double entries on this account when I will then import the GL balances
(that will include the open entries for sales & purchases)

I might also end up with double posting on the VAT too, since it's going to be updated when I will post my sales Journal + increased again when I will import y GL open balances
(which will include the VAT Collected GL account)

What's the most elegant way to crack that one ? As you might have guessed I don't have much accounting
experience ;-)

j.marselo

this is a case that you need to consult and get decision from financial officer in your client. go to CFO, or Controller, discuss your concern, just as you write here.

Ikari

-Joe : The accounting is outsourced to a third party, so they have no accountant in house (at least for now). And I won't be able to talk to them before a little while (due to internal politic). Regardless of the final specific account I will need to use,
I'm still interested to know how I'm going to solve this. Can you help ??

BTW I just tought of something, let's say my GL Account for Sales on Customer is X, and in my sale journal I got an invoice for a customer, and i enter an amount of 5000, as GL Balancing account I choose again X. And when I post I will get this

Debit (5000) - Credit (5000) = 0 for the same account

And then I can import the GL Balances for account X and then I won't end up with double entry posting

Would that work in NAV and in terms of accounting ?

j.marselo

so, go and explore this part: financial management - setup - posting group. it's where you can configure the journal mapping for transactions.

Ikari

@Joe : I think you misuderstood me, reading the financial posting group setup is not going to advise me on which balancing account to use for entering open balances (which is a one off thing, not a day to day regular usage)

The financial management setup on posting group is for a regular day to day use of the system, and do not give any tips & advises on data migration for bringing GL Balances, Cutomers and Vendors open entries.

BTW My posting groups are all setup and fine ...

I did search on partner source, but I could not find anything, there's a few bits & pieces on RIM, but it's rather poor.

I wonder why Microsoft did not release a proper guide line or white paper on data migration for transactions.? :whistle:

I would be please if someone could tell me to RTFM, is such a good manual existed \:D/

AdamRoue

You have two choices really:

1. Set the balancing account to the "data take on account". When the general ledger opening balances are then entered you will have a figure for this already, so you code this to the data take on account. In this manner the data take on account will reconcile to zero, if it does not it is an early indicator of an issue for reconciliation because the opening balance will not match the opening trial balance. You can have as many segregated data take on accounts as you wish for each area, so in your example sales and purchases can be split.

2. Set the balancing account to the debtors account. This then creates a net balance of zero on the account and the balance is then made up from the initial trial balance entry. Not adviseable in my opinion but some accountants do not want to create a take on account for reconciliation.

Ultimately the first response is correct, the accountants need to define what they want, you need to tell them what they can do. Then they decide and handle the post go live reconciliation as well as the entry of the opening balances.