Entering Opening Balances

If you are setting up a new business and Mamut is your first accounting package you need to enter the Opening Balances. If you are unsure about the amounts or the accounts to post them to, we strongly recommend you consult your Accountant/Auditor. The following points are based on transfer from existing accounting software or manual book-keeping to Mamut, but if you, as a new business, have the same sort of transactions in your Opening Balance, it may be advantageous for you to follow our recommendation.

If you are closing a previous book-keeping system, the closing position (Trial Balance) will be the Opening Balance in Mamut. If you are unsure if you have the final position in your previous system, please consult your Accountant.

Tip! Before entering the opening balances, you should first register customers and suppliers in the Contact module. This will make it easier for you to register outstanding customer payments and trade creditors.
If you are using the Logistics module, i.e. selling products from a warehouse, you should setup all current products before proceeding to enter balances.
Before you start entering your products, you may want to review the settings for the Product and Purchase modules which you find by going to View - Settings - Company - Settings per Module - Product or Purchase respectively.

Go to View - Accounting - Journal Entry.
Click New.
Change the Journal Type to Opening Balances.
Check that you are in the correct accounting year. This is displayed in the centre of the top menu. If you are in the wrong accounting year double click on this number and change it to the correct value.
Check that the date is correct in the date field. If it is incorrect you simply edit the value.

Note! If you are beginning to use Mamut during the accounting year it is necessary to transfer any balances into Mamut. For example, if you are beginning to use Mamut from 01/02/2009 you must enter the figures dated 31/01/2009 (i.e. the final day of the previous period). We strongly recommend that you start inputting from the first month of a VAT period.

Make sure that you are in the correct period, if you are not click on the drop-down box and change to the correct period.
Start by entering all the balances on the debit side (these are the accounts between the figures 1000 and 1999). You do this by typing the first account number in the N/C column, then entering the debit amount.
After all the debit balances have been correctly entered, you can move on to the credit balances (these are the accounts between 2000 and 2999 in the standard chart of accounts). This is done in the same way as above.
Click on the Update Ledgers button, or press [Ctrl+H].

You have now transferred all of these values to the General Ledger.

Note! It is recommended that you enter all opening balances as one journal, not in multiple journals. If, however, you do decide to enter in multiple journals, it must be noted that each separate journal must balance (i.e. debit = credit). If every single journal does not balance then the resulting general ledger will not balance.

Entering Opening Balances for the Customer and Supplier ledgers

For the Customer Ledger and Supplier Ledger you can enter the amounts you owe or that are owed to you as lump sums or specified per invoice as per your existing system. We recommend the latter as it is then easier to match receipts/payments later. Before you start entering balances, you should set-up all existing suppliers/ customers and enter their details. Enter outstanding Sales Invoices as Debit to the customer account and as Credit to a temporary account such as 9996. Credit notes work the opposite way. It is a good idea to use the original Invoice number and date as a reference for later matching and aging. In the Supplier ledger you enter purchase invoices as Credit on the suppliers account and as Debit on another temporary account such as 9997. Credit notes work the opposite way.

Bank Account Balances:
You need to enter the balance as per the bank statement as well as items that have not cleared as per your bank reconciliation. If you are unsure about this, please contact your Accountant. Normally you would enter the Bank Balance(s) per bank statement when entering the Opening Balance journal. The difference between the Bank Statement figure and your closing balance figure is uncleared items as per your bank reconciliation. You post this difference as a Debit/Credit on your suspense account. Then use Bank Receipt/Payment journals to post the uncleared items and to post the Debits/Credits to the same suspense account to ensure the transactions turn up on your Bank Reconciliation Screen.

Nominal Ledger Opening Balances:
Use an Opening Balance journal and enter the balances Debit and Credit as per your previous system’s close out trial balance. (Note: For Bank Account balances see point 8.) Customer Ledger Balance is entered as Debit on the temporary account you used to enter your Customer Ledger Balances. Supplier Ledger Balance is entered as Credit on the temporary account you used to set up your Supplier Ledger Balances.

After you have entered all Opening Balances, we would advise you to run off a Trial Balance as well as an Aged Debtor Listing and Aged Supplier Listing.

Check that the figures and aging match the closing balance of your old system. Also check that the balance on the Temporary/Suspense accounts you have used in this process is null. You must make adjustments as necessary. When you are satisfied that everything entered is correct and matches the close out trial balance from your previous system, you should perform a stock take to update your stock levels on the products you carry in stock. After having updated your stock, we recommend you run off a Stock Value report and compare this figure with the figure in your balance sheet account for stock - they should match. If they do not match, please make adjustments as necessary.

Please remember it is good accounting practice to perform the period-end processing when you have completed your period-end adjustments. This will also ensure that your financial statements will be correct for each period. If you are unsure about the processes for Period-end/Year-end we recommend you seek advice from your accountant or attend the Mamut Academy for training. Please remember that you will not be able to post to a period that has been closed.

Partially closing accounts

The Partially close accounts function in Mamut Business Software is used in the time period following the beginning of a new accounting year and before the previous year has been closed (when the final Opening Balance has been transferred).

By temporarily transferring the Opening Balance you are provided with a better basis for reviewing the company's Balance Sheet items for the new accounting year in this time period. Find out more in Partially Close Accounts.