Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
The opening balance journal (transaction number prefix OJ) is a many-to-many transaction used to enter opening balances for the general chart of accounts.
 
Opening balance journal
 
The historical balancing controlled account is used to post the transaction, which always has a net effect of zero on this account.
 
Two different techniques can be used to populate the list of debits and credits that will make up the transaction:

  1. Adding/importing figures from an existing chart of accounts, then dragging-and-dropping the balances from the existing chart to the new chart. This is the preferred method because it allows the structure of the chart of accounts to be revised, as well as requiring less typing of figures. The mappings between the old and new charts are also preserved.

  2. Typing opening balance figures into each account on the chart. This is useful in situations where figures cannot be imported and the chart of accounts in ContactsLaw matches that from which the figures are derived.

Typically, the opening balance journal activity is only used once per practice or service company.

Importing account balances

Account balances can be imported from a legacy system or external accounting package via an appropriate plug-in.
 
The default plug-in provides a mechanism to import balances from a CSV (comma-separated values) file:
  • The data must take the form of: AccountName, AccountType, Balance where values can be separated by commas or tabs.
  • AccountType must be one of the following: Assets, Liabilities, Income, Expenses, Equity.

See also

List of transaction types