Generate Preliminary Opening Entries

The Generate Preliminary Opening Entries command provides a "soft" year-end close option so that GL reports in the new cycle will show opening balances without having to close the previous cycle.

You may generate the preliminary opening entries as many times as you want. Each time you use this command, the system reverses any preliminary opening entries that already existed and creates the new entries.

When there are disabled accounts with non-zero balances in the previous cycle, the GL entries are not created, and a message displays which accounts need to be re-enabled.

The process has improved account mapping by creating new balancing accounts in the old fiscal year, when needed, which will be automatically rolled into the new fiscal year before the opening entries are generated.

When you're ready to generate the final opening entries, you'll first use the Reverse Preliminary Opening Entries command to back out any preliminary opening entries before generating the final set of opening entries for a new fiscal year

Before you begin

You must rollover the chart of accounts before you can run this process.

We advise you to roll the chart each time you generate preliminary entries in case any new accounts have been added to the COA since the last time you ran this procedure.

Generate preliminary opening entries

  1. Select Accounting Cycle from the Chart of Accounts menu, and the Accounting Cycle window opens.

  2. Check the box for the accounting cycle, and select Generate Preliminary Opening Entries from the More menu. The Generate Preliminary Opening Entries window opens displaying this message, "This action will not create any closing entries, but will create an opening entry in the new fiscal year. It will also reverse any previous entry of this type in the new fiscal year. The process may create new balancing accounts in the old fiscal year, which will be automatically rolled into the new fiscal year. Continue?"

  3. Enter the Transaction Date. The date defaults to the begin date of the selected cycle, but may be edited.

  4. Click OK. The entries are created, and the Prelim. Open Entries Status column displays the date & time of the action.

  5. Optional. Review the single entry created in the Actual Journal for this transaction. Remember to select the fiscal year for which the transaction was created.

 

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