MANAGE PROJECT BEGINNING BALANCES

During system setup, use the Project Beginning Balances screen to initialize the beginning balances in the general ledger for project account/organization combinations. (Use the Manage Non-Project Beginning Balances screen to initialize non-project beginning balances.)

Before initializing beginning balances, you must first set up your accounts, organizations, and projects on the Manage Accounts screen, Manage Organization Elements screen, and on the Basic Info tab of the Manage Project User Flow screen, respectively, and link account/organization combinations to projects.

If you are initializing Costpoint at the beginning of the fiscal year, enter balances only for 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 enter a "beginning" balance amount as a starting balance for your Costpoint activity that is actually a mid-year account balance. If you initialize mid-year, use adjusting journal entries to establish year-to-date activity amounts for project balance sheet accounts. (Initialize year-to-date balances for project income statement accounts with adjusting journal entries also. That is necessary so that the rate calculation programs can recognize and include the balances in the calculations.)

If you enter prior fiscal year balances through journal entries, the prior fiscal year amounts are also be included in rate calculations, resulting in inaccurate rates.

After you enter beginning balances during initialization for both non-project and project accounts, generate the Trial Balance report or General Ledger Detail report to verify that amounts were entered correctly. Once initialization is completed, restrict access to this screen. Thereafter, use it to make post-year-end adjustments to non-project beginning balances.

Location

Fiscal Year/Project

Fiscal Year

Enter, or click to select, the fiscal year for which you want to enter beginning balances. You can use Query to select the correct fiscal year or to select and view balances entered previously.

Only enter beginning balances for one fiscal year on this screen. Those balances should be the beginning balances as of the start of the current fiscal year. If you enter more than one year's balances, Costpoint reports will contain incorrect information. If you want to initialize balances on a year-by-year basis for later trend reporting, enter the information by fiscal year on the Manage Prior Year Project Comparative Balances screen.

Project

Enter, or click to select, the project for which you want to enter beginning balances.

Running Balances

Amount, Hours

In each session, Costpoint maintains a running balance of all account balances you enter in the session. It is recommended that you calculate the net amount and hours for the balances you plan to enter during the session. When you finish, check those totals against Costpoint's running balances to make sure that no data entry errors occurred. (When you close the screen, Costpoint discards the running balances).

Table Window

To begin adding balances, click .

Account

Enter, or click to select, the number of the account for which you want to enter beginning balances. Only asset, liability, and stockholder's equity accounts are valid entries.

Organization

Enter, or click to select, the organization for which you want to enter beginning balances.

Beginning Amount

Enter the beginning balance, in your company's functional currency, for the selected account and organization. Regardless of the type of account, enter the balance as a positive amount if it is a debit balance. If it is a credit balance, enter a negative amount by preceding the amount with a minus sign (hyphen).

Beginning Hours

Enter the beginning balance in hours (if applicable) for the selected account.

Account Name

This non-editable field displays the name of the account.