Debtors Opening Balances

Unless a new business is starting, ie. no customers owe the company anything yet, debtors balances for customers will need to be carried forward from the old accounting system, which then need to be set up in Jim2. The general ledger should already show the starting point total of the amount of money receivable from debtors as a general ledger opening balance figure.

Just how that figure is balanced is made by entering individual debtor opening balance invoices and credits. Entering these opening balance invoices/credits allows for reporting on and applying customer payments correctly within Jim2.

An opening balance must be entered in the general ledger Trade Debtors account, and this should match the total of the opening balances in the Debtors Opening Balances.

These opening balance invoices/credits have not been created from any Jim2 workflow (job, stock information, etc.). These entries are a one-off reconciliation between the old system and Jim2. Therefore, it is very important that any out-of-balance amounts between the carry-forward general ledger debtors balance from the old software and the debtors opening balance invoices/credits are clarified. The debtors opening balances do not necessarily need to be entered immediately to begin using Jim2, however it is recommended that they are entered as soon as possible to make processing customer payments more accurate.

Once entered, opening balance debtors are then aged correctly, and will appear on statements. Once a payment is applied to an opening balance debtor invoice/credit, the original entry in the Debtors Opening Balances screen will change to a grey shaded background, and can no longer be edited or deleted.

To access the Debtors Opening Balances screen, go to Tools > Debtors OB on the ribbon.

At the bottom of the Debtors Opening Balances screen there are three dollar value fields. These are:

Field	Explanation
Debtors	This is the general ledger debtors account opening balance.
Opening Balance	This is the calculated value from the entries in this list.
Out of Balance	This is the difference between the value entered into the general ledger trade debtors account as the opening balance and what has been entered here – this field should show $0.00 once all debtors opening balance entries are entered.

The Trade Debtors general ledger account will also display its own opening balance, the calculated opening balance and any out of balance amounts, to minimise errors when used to update the opening balance.

Whenever updating a debtors opening balance, make sure that any changes are also made in the general ledger Trade Debtors account opening balance value, as this is not updated automatically, it must be updated manually.