Once you have created your nominal accounts, you need to decide at what point you are going to start entering transactions. Whatever date you choose to do this, you are almost certain to have opening balances to enter for accounts that are currently active. In the case of the Nominal Ledger you are likely to have balances to enter for the nominal account, even if these only relate to Balance Sheet items at the start of a financial year.
You can enter opening balances for the Sales Ledger, Purchase Ledger and Cash Book using the Opening Balance options in the relevant module before or after you begin using the Nominal Ledger, since these do not create nominal postings. Your opening Trial Balance should include the balances that reflect any outstanding debtor and creditor amounts in the Sales and Purchase Ledgers and bank accounts in the Cash Book.
Opening balances represent the financial position of your organisation on the day you start entering live transactions. Although you can start entering transactions on any date you want, many companies choose the start of the new financial year as their opening date because they or their accountant has normally drawn up a set of accounts up to that date. This closing set of accounts can then act as the opening balances for the new year.
If you want to start to use the system part way through a financial year, we recommend that you obtain a Trial Balance for the final period end and use this as the basis for your opening entries on the Nominal Ledger. Ask your accountant for assistance in this matter if you are unsure about how to achieve this. It is a good idea to make sure you have created nominal account records for all accounts that are on the opening Trial Balance as well as your default nominal accounts.
If you start using Sage 200 part way through your financial year, we recommend you enter your opening balances in the period prior to going live. This prevents your Balance this month figures being inflated with the Opening balance value.
For example, you are going live in June 2007 and your financial year runs from January to December and you use 12 monthly periods. This means period six (6) is your first period using Sage 200 for live transactions.
If you are going live in the first month of your financial year, follow the recommendation below.