During system setup, use this screen to initialize the beginning balance of each relevant account/org combination in the General Ledger. Use this screen only to initialize beginning balances for non-project account/orgs. You should initialize project beginning balances in the Maintain Project Beginning Balances screen. Before updating beginning balances, you must first set up your account and organization tables, in Maintain Accounts and Maintain Org Elements, respectively, and link organizations to the appropriate accounts.
If you are initializing as of the beginning of the fiscal year, enter balances only for non-project Balance Sheet accounts.
If you are initializing later in your fiscal year, enter only beginning-of-fiscal-year balances in this screen. Do not use this screen to enter a "beginning" balance amount that is a starting balance for your Costpoint activity, but which is actually a mid-year account balance. If you are initializing mid-year, you must initialize the YTD activity amounts for non-project Balance Sheet accounts through adjusting journal entries. You will need to enter year-to-date balances for non-project Income Statement accounts as well. You must also initialize these accounts through adjusting journal entries so that the rate calculation programs can recognize and include these balances in the calculations.
Use this screen when initializing the system. After entering all beginning balances for project and non-project accounts, print the Trial Balance or General Ledger to verify that amounts were properly entered. Access to this screen should be restricted once initialization is complete. Once the system is initialized, you should use this screen to make post-year-end adjustments to non-project beginning balances.
Enter, or select from the drop-down box, the appropriate fiscal year. You can also use the Query function to select the correct fiscal year. You can also use the Query function to select and view previous entries made in this screen.
Enter, or use Lookup to select, the appropriate organization (org). The org name will display once the selection is made. To access the table window, use the New Line button on the toolbar.
Enter, or use Lookup to select, the appropriate account for which you want to enter beginning balance information. If you use Lookup, only asset, liability, and stockholder's equity type accounts are displayed for selection.
This non-editable field displays the name of the account that you have selected to update.
This non-editable field displays the Project Required flag from the Maintain Accounts table. You are restricted to updating account balances for non-project accounts, which have a value of "N" in this field.
Enter the opening balance, in your company's functional currency, for the selected account. Regardless of the type of account (e.g., asset, liability), enter the number as a positive amount if the account should have a debit balance. If the account should have a credit balance, enter a negative amount by preceding the number with a dash.
Enter the beginning balance in hours (if applicable) for the selected account.
In each session, a running balance amount will be kept of all accounts initialized in this session. A good procedure to follow is to know in advance the net cost amount and hours of all the accounts you are going to enter in that session. By checking these hash totals against the running balances, you can catch data entry errors more easily. The running balances are not retained by the system after you leave the screen.