We are converting to the Baan G/L at the end of the year. The basic concept is to zero the existing balances in the adjustment period and to load new "opening balances" from the existing legal ledger. Closing the year will then roll the newly loaded amounts as the opening balances for the start of 2003.

My question is this. The tfgld203 table has opening balances by ledger and currency. What will be the impact of our proposed solution? I don not fully understand where these balances come from. Is it the 205 table?

Also has anyone done something similar and if so how exactly did you go about it?

Doug,

Can we assume you are implementing Baan IV? To be sure that you get appropriate advice, please sepcify the version.

You say you want to ‘zero the existing balances in the adjustment period and to load new "opening balances" from the existing [legacy?] legal ledger.’

Why you want to close fiscal year 2002 in Baan in order to load opening balances? Are you currently using Baan in fiscal 2002? Do tfgld203 & tfgld204 have opening balances for 2002? Are you trying to migrate some form of history from legacy into Baan?

Or is the implementation of Baan Finance new for 2003?

In the course of “normal” operations, the procedure for closing the current year will populate opening balances in tfgld203/204 for the next fiscal year. If you are starting new, however, manual Opening Balance transactions provide the means to populate tfgld203 and tfgld204 with the opening balances as of the beginning of the fiscal year.

Note that transactions with category “Opening Balance” cannot be used to create opening balances for control accounts.

You may want to look at this thread: http://www.baanforums.com/baanboard/showthread.php?threadid=698&highlight=opening+balance

Scott Johnson

We have been live with 4c4 for several years now but have been using a legacy ledger package as our legal ledger. The way things work is that Baan transactions flow through the Baan G/L and are then exported to the legacy system where there is additional input from other systems and also journal voucher corrections. That means the balances in the Baan G/L only partially represent the actual G/L.

The concept again is to close period 12, do the auto balancing entry to zero the P&L, extract and reverse all of the existing Baan G/L balances and then load the actual balances from the legacy system. The load will be balance sheet only since we will close the year in the legacy system prior to doing the loadback to Baan.

Both of those adjustments will be done in the 13th period. Closing the year will move the loaded balances to the opening balances in 2003.

My guess is that the opening balance amounts in foreign (non USD) currencies result from multi-currency transactions and are really not relevant since we do no reporting on foreign currency. I'm looking for verification to that statement.

I will look at the other thread, but any additional comments are appreciated.

Doug

Doug,

Got it! I was answering questions for the wrong scenario.

I think your proposed procedure is conceptually sound.

For period 13 adjustments, you should have three basic entries (if no errors):
1) The Auto Balancing entry to clear P&L
2) An “audit batch” containing a Journal Voucher to clear all G/L Balance Sheet accounts in Baan.
3) An “audit batch” containing a Journal Voucher to set up the final Balance Sheet account balances from your legacy system.

The second and third could be entered in one batch, but separate batches will provide a better (easier-to-follow) audit trail.

RE: “My guess is that the opening balance amounts in foreign (non USD) currencies result from multi-currency transactions and are really not relevant since we do no reporting on foreign currency. I'm looking for verification to that statement.”

I assume that means you are using the MCR extension in IVc4. If exchange rates have been maintained properly/consistently and if there are no rounding differences, I think the closing procedures should also clear the non-USD balances. Someone else may have more thoughts on this. If you’re not reporting in other currencies, minor differences should – as you say – be irrelevant.

A good summary of year end procedures is attached to the following thread: http://www.baanboard.com/baanboard/showthread.php?threadid=187&highlight=year+end

Scott