When you start working in Pastel, you usually already have existing data. You
therefore need to capture your opening balances into the system.  

To enter your take on balances you need to follow the following procedures:

1.  Ensure that you have a full trial balance for the period which you want to take
on your balances.
2.  Before you can carry out this procedure, you have to setup general ledger
processing and create each general ledger account.
3.  Create the following take-on balance suspense accounts for your control
accounts:
Account  Description
9990/000  General ledger suspense
9990/001  Customers
9990/002  Suppliers
9990/003  Inventory
9990/004  Bank*
3.  If you follow these procedures, main account 9990 should have a zero
balance at the end of the take-on process. The customer, supplier, and
inventory accounts should equal their control accounts on your old system.
4.  Obtain the following documents from your old system which will give you the
complete information about your customers, suppliers and inventory:
•  Trial balance  
•  Customer Age analysis  
•  Supplier Age analysis
•  Inventory Valuation Report
5.  You first need to capture your trial balance using your general journal. Ensure
that in the General Journal you select the correct period corresponding to
your trial balance. If the periods are not available in the drop down menu on
the journal, select settings. Inside the settings unsure that you uncheck This
Year Transactions and that there is no tick in Tax Processing, and close. This
option will enable you to use last year periods and you will notice that at the
bottom of the screen there will be a box written Last Year.   
6.  Enter the balances for each account as reflected in your Trial balance at the
correct date keeping in mind that the control accounts that you have created
sub accounts for in the suspense accounts need to be processed as well. Enter
the customer and supplier control balances into the above-mentioned take-on
accounts. Do NOT enter these into the customer control account or the
supplier control account. The procedures for entering customer and supplier
balances will take care of these values.  
7.  If you have inventory in your company, and inventory integrates into the
general ledger, enter the inventory control account's value in the inventory
take-on account. Do NOT enter the value into the inventory control account.
The procedure for entering inventory will take care of this value. If inventory
does not integrate into the general ledger, you can enter the inventory value
directly into the inventory account.
8.  When you capture opening balances for foreign currency cash books, enter
the local currency value into a suspense account rather than into the bank
account. The system does not let you post to the foreign currency bank
account with a journal entry type. Later, in the cash book itself, post the
amount from the suspense account to the bank account.
9.  At the end the General journal should be a mirror image of your trial balance
and it should reflect In Balance at the bottom right hand side of your screen.
10. Print out your batch. Check and correct all the values you entered. Make a
backup of your company, and update the batch.
 

You use the next procedure separately for customer and supplier opening balances. To take on customer and supplier opening balances

1.  Before you can carry out this procedure, you have to setup customer /
supplier processing, create each customer / supplier general ledger account.

2.  Obtain the required balances from your respective age analysis. If you need
to enter aged balances, obtain balances for each ageing period you use.
Otherwise, obtain the current total outstanding balances.

3.  Use the Customer Journal for your customers and Supplier Journals for your
Suppliers. Select an entry type that allows customer / supplier processing.

4.  When you entered general ledger opening balances, you put the control
account balance into the special take-on balance account. Set this take-on
account as the contra account.

5.  In the settings at the bottom right hand side of the customer/supplier journal:

6.  Uncheck the Invoke Open Item check box

7.  Uncheck the Tax Processing check box.

8.  Enter the balances for each account and period you require. If you enter more than one transaction per account to get accurate ageing, ensure that the references are unique for each transaction. If they are not, the ageing will be incorrect. On the other hand, if you wish to consolidate all opening balance transactions per account, use the same reference number for each
transaction.

9.  If you do this over time, make a backup whenever you stop working.  

10.  Print out your batch. Check and correct all the values you entered. Make a
backup of your company, and update the batch.

11. Check the value of the take-on account balance against the customer control
account. The correct customer value should now be in the actual customer
control account. The take-on account should show a value of zero. If this is
not the case, find the errors(s) and process adjusting journals.

To take on inventory cost prices and quantities
1.  Before you can carry out this procedure, you have to setup inventory
processing, create each inventory item, and you must know how to enter
inventory journals.
2.  You enter inventory cost prices and quantities in the Inventory Journals using
your inventory valuation report
3.  Select the correct period for your take-on before you start entering
transactions.
4.  Enter the opening costs and quantities for each inventory item. You can enter
both values in a single line. If you work over a long time, make a backup
whenever you stop working.
5.  If inventory integrates to the general ledger, you have to enter a general
ledger adjustment account. Use the inventory take-on account you created in
the general ledger take on.
6.  Print out your batch. Check and correct all the values you entered. Make a
backup of your company, and update the batch. 7.  Print out inventory reports and check your cost and quantity values. If there
are errors, enter further adjusting journals.
8.  If inventory integrates to the general ledger, check the inventory take-on
account and the actual inventory account. The take-on account should be
zero, and the inventory account(s) should contain the correct value. If you
are not fully integrated, you can check the total of your inventory cost report
against the value in your general ledger inventory account.
9.  To take on inventory selling prices
10.  If you price inventory items individually, you enter their selling prices when
you create the items.  
11.  If your selling prices work off a cost mark-up, use the Adjust Selling Prices
function to create selling prices as mark-ups on cost or on other selling
prices.

Things to note when processing Take on Balances:
•  Take on balances are date specific, if they are processed in an incorrect date
they will not appear properly in your reports  
•  When taking on balances for your bank, if you want your transaction to be
reconciled in you bank reconciliation you need to first put it into the suspense
account when processing your General Journal and then later bring it in using
a cash book receipts journal. However if you are receiving an amount which is
an overdraft it is advisable to use the same Cash book Receipt Journal but
process the amount as a negative to reflect that you are receiving a liability.
•  The Vat control Account is the only Control Account that allows you to
process a journal directly into it.
•  It is not advisable to only take on balances only for your Customers or
Suppliers without a full trial balance as this will leave the suspense account
with a balance at the end.  
•  When processing a full trial balance in your General Journal there is no
need to enter a contra account because all your debits are equal to your
credits. As long as the journal says in balance, it will update.