Backloading Open Balances in ESC Accounting

Backloading For Departmental Income Statements

If you do not want or need departmental reports skip to Backloading Trial Balance Opening Balances below. 

Run Departmental Income Statements for each department from your previous accounting package and ESC. If all backloading has been done as recommended, all accounts should be zero in ESC.  Go to Company → General Journal List and click Add Journal Entry.  Create a journal entry to bring the balances to what they should be for each department. BE SURE TO ENTER THE DEPARTMENT IN THE JOURNAL ENTRY!!! Use the Invalid Account as the balancing account, but DO NOT put the department on that line.

Run another Departmental Income Statement for that department in ESC and compare to the original from your previous accounting package. If any adjustments are needed you can open the journal entry from the general journal and edit it.

Backloading Trial Balance Opening Balances

Print a Trial Balance from ESC and your previous accounting package for the period just prior to your starting period in ESC, usually the end of the fiscal year. If all back loading has been done as recommended, all accounts in ESC should be zero.

If you are starting ESC at the beginning of a fiscal year you will need the balance for your Retained Earnings account from your previous accounting package after the previous year was closed.

Go to Company → System Setup → System Accounts and remove the account number from the Accounts Payable field and the Agreement Reserve field before doing the backloading journal entry.  No one will be able to enter anything to AP or Service Agreements as long as these numbers are not in System Accounts.

Now head to Company → General Journal List. Click Add Journal Entry and do a journal entry from the Trial Balance from your previous accounting package. If you have consolidated or changed your Chart of Accounts it may be a good idea to pencil in the correct ESC account numbers on the Trial Balance before you start to avoid confusion.

Once the journal entry is done run another Trial Balance in ESC and compare to the original from your previous accounting package. If any adjustments are needed, you can open the journal entry from the general journal and edit it. At this point your ESC Trial Balance should be in balance and match the Trial Balance from your previous accounting package.

Close all screens and go to Company → Close Fiscal Year; choose the oldest year shown (at the very bottom), then click Close Fiscal Year. This will close all years up to the first month of the current year. In the example below, 1/01/2013 will be my current open period.

In ESC run the following reports and compare the closing balances to the associated accounts on the ESC Trial Balance to make sure they match:

• Check Register – all accounts
• Accounts Payable Open Invoices
• Accounts Receivable Summary
• Service Agreement Reserve – if used

If something does not match, check the following:

• Did the report match the Trial Balance in your previous accounting package? If no, find out why. If yes…
• Does the ESC report match the Report from your previous accounting package? If no, find out why. If yes…
• Do the balances on both of the Trial Balances match? 

One of the above is the problem.

When everything matches, re-enter the Accounts Payable and Service Agreement Reserve account numbers in Company → System Setup → System Accounts and select the appropriate Open Accounting Period under Company → Select Open Accounting Period.