Enter Opening Balances

This tutorial guides you through entering opening balances to maintain an audit trail and follow proper accounting practices. The process involves three steps: creating a prior year (if one doesn't already exist), importing or creating a journal in the prior year containing the ending balances, and running the Fiscal Year Closing utility, which moves those ending balances into beginning balances for the next year.

1. For a visual tutorial, see the Enter Opening Balances video.
2. All video tutorials can be viewed from the Videos at a Glance page.

Create a Prior Year

1. From the General Ledger menu, select Modify -> Year and Periods.
2. Click the Add New Year link.
3. Enter the Begin Date and End Date for the previous year and then check the Include Audit Period? check box.
4. Review the Year Period page. Click the Update button when you are finished.
5. The Year Period page displays options to set up account structure and accounts. Select to copy your chart of accounts from the next year and then click the Update button.
6. After the account structure and accounts are set up, a summary appears. Click the OK button after reviewing the summary information.

Import a Journal

The next part of this tutorial guides you through importing your prior year ending balances from a Microsoft^® Excel file. The prior year ending balances can also be entered as a manual journal. See the Process a Journal tutorial for steps to enter a manual journal.

1. To get started, open Microsoft^® Excel or your spreadsheet editor and create a worksheet that contains the following column headers: CompanyNumber, Period, JournalCode, Date, FundNumber, DepartmentNumber, AccountNumber, and Amount.

2. Next, enter the rows of detail for your balance sheet accounts.

3. Save the file in the latest Excel format (.xlsx).

4. From your Financials site, verify that your Current Financial Settings are correct. The Fiscal Year should be set to the previous year and the Period should be set to the Audit period. Click the change link if you need to modify the year and period.
5. From the General Ledger menu, select Manage -> Unposted Journals.
6. Click the Import Journals link in the upper right-hand corner of the page.
7. Click the Choose File button.
8. Navigate to your Excel (.xlsx) file using the dialog box and select it.
9. Verify the correct file is displayed next to the Choose File button and then click the Import button.
10. After the journal imports, click the Expand icon next to your journal and then review the lines of detail. If any corrections are needed, select the Exit the Import Preview button, make your corrections to the file, and then import the file again. If everything looks correct, then click the Import Journals button.
11. The Unposted Journals page appears with your imported journal listed. Select your journal, click the Journal Edit Report button to review and print your journal. If the journal is correct, click the Post Journals button.
12. The Posting List of Journals appears. Review that all the details are correct and then click the Finalize Post button.

Fiscal Year Closing

The last step for entering your opening balances is to run a fiscal year closing. The fiscal year closing moves the ending balances for your balance sheet accounts to be opening balances in the next year.

1. The first thing to do is to verify that you are in the prior year. View the Current Financial Settings in the upper right-hand corner of the Financials. Click the change link if you need to modify the year.
2. From the General Ledger menu, select Utilities -> Close Fiscal Year.
3. The Fiscal Year Closing can be run multiple times. So, if your opening balances in the next year are not correct after running the Fiscal Year Closing the first time, you can enter and post another journal in the previous year and then run the Fiscal Year Closing again. Review this page and options and then click the Close Year button when finished.
4. The Year End Closing Entries Report appears. Print and review the report and then click the Close Report button.
5. When the Fiscal Year Closing is done, the General Ledger dashboard appears. To see the opening balances on a report, select Reports -> Statement of Financial Position. (The opening balances can also be viewed on the Trial Balance worksheet or Comparative Trial Balance reports.)
6. Select the Filters and Options you desire and then click the Run Report button.
7. Notice the Beginning Balances (Beginning of Year amounts) are adjusted by the amounts that were imported.

Updated August 05, 2026 05:21