A new journal will need to be created to move the balance from the balance sheet accounts that will have supporting sub-ledger information migrated. The sub-ledger imports will create accounting journals to update the balance of these accounts, so the original balance that came in through the GL imports will need to be moved out. The full balance should be moved out of the account and into the corresponding historical balancing account. When the sub ledger import is performed it will update the balance sheet account and clear the historical balanicng account. 

The journal entry settings should be:

Journal =  OPACC 
Date = Go-Live Date
Description/Line Labels =  should describe the journal’s purpose. E.g. Opening Balance - Move balances to clearing accounts.

TIP: If you are going live on a Monday and the last trading on the old system was the Friday, then you can set the opening balance GL journals to the Friday and this journal can be set to the Sunday.

Below are the accounts that should be cleared, the historical clearing account to use and whether a debit/credit should be applied to the account:

• Trade debtors (credit)  => Debtor Historical Balancing (debit)
• Trade creditors (debit) => Creditor Historical Balancing (credit)
• Stock on Hand (credit) => Stock Hstorical Balancing (debit)
• Bank Account (credit) => outstanding payment receipts (debit).

NOTE: the above debit/credit recommendations assume that the account is its natural balance state. i.e. Trade Debtor, Stock and Banks have a debit balance and Trade Creditor has a credit balance. Reverse the suggested, if the account is not in its natural balance state.

Example Below for a go-live date of the 01/10/2024

The balance sheet run for the day before go live with the balances that will need to be journalled out highlighted.

Below: The corresponding journal required to move the balances to the clearning accounts. The journal date should be go-live date. Note also that the bank is cleared to the Outstanding Payment account.



Below: The balance sheet run at go-live date. The balance amounts for debtors, creditors, stock and bank are now in the clearing accounts.




Note: The balance sheet run for the day before go-live should not be affected by ths journal and should still reconcile to the old systems closing balance.