The best way of entering opening balances in TUHUND – ERP

At the onset I would like to clarify that entering opening balances is a one time job for those companies or their legal business entities or branches that have been doing business prior to the implementation of TUHUND. It does not have to be repeated ever again. I would also like to clarify that normally ECS helps the customer with entering previous data including opening balances as part of the TUHUND implementation. The customer may choose to enter the data for any business entity, entities, branch or branches of the enterprise only if that is needed.

TUHUND Accounting and Finance module does not allow single point entry as that would result in error in the trial balance, correcting which is a cumbersome process. TUHUND has been built in such a way that even a person with minimal accounting knowledge can manage accounting. Therefore, accounting errors are prevented rather than just providing ways to correct them. In TUHUND Accounting and Finance module trial balance would always match and the purpose of proving trial balance in TUHUND Accounting and Finance module is to make those users comfortable who are used to derive information from trial balance. With TUHUND Accounting and Finance module that is not actually required as it gives you financial and management accounting reports including balance sheets, profit and loss statements and trading accounts in real time and with drill down capability. It also gives you accounts receivable and accounts payable with age warning and reminders.

There are two equally good ways of entering opening balances in TUHUND Accounting and Finance module. The right choice depends on the availability of balance sheets for the financial years prior to the implementation of TUHUND. The two methods are explained as follows:

Method 1 : One time entry

This method is suited if you have audited balance sheets along with the schedules of the financial year prior to the implementation of TUHUND available at the time of entering the opening balances. You can enter entire balance sheet through a single form as TUHUND Accounting and Finance module offers you unlimited debits and credits in the same transaction as long as the transaction is balanced. As this entry cannot be shown under any of the traditional accounting vouchers, you will need to create a new voucher. You may call this voucher "opening balances" or whatever you like. You will then need to create a new accounting form with any name, but calling it something like "opening balances entry form" will avoid any confusion later. After the form is created, you will have to enter all the ledger groups on debit side or credit side respectively. It is better to add all the groups on both sides as this form will anyway not be used in future. You also do not need to allow access to this form to any other user as nobody will need access to it. After the form is created, you are free to enter entire balance sheet in one go. Once the entries are made, you can deactivate the form.

You will have to repeat the process for each branch or legal business entity. It is neither necessary to use this method for all the branches if you are using it for a few nor is it necessary that one person or one office does this job. It is all in the hands of the management whom they will assign this task to.

Method 2: Balancing method.

This method is suited if you do not have the audited balance sheet of the financial year prior to the implementation of TUHUND available in time. In this method you can keep entering the data as and when it is available. If you have not been using an ERP prior to TUHUND, the previous financial data might take several months to come and you do not need to wait till then. You will need to create an account called "Balancing Account" under your assets or liabilities. It is alright to create it under any of the two but would be better to create it under assets if you think the branch or entity has made a profit in the previous financial year and under liabilities otherwise. You can base this decision on a guess if you are not sure. You can then go on entering the data as and when available till all the data is entered. This can be completed even when you actually have a balance sheet made for the previous financial year. Though trial balance will show good right from the beginning, the check for the correctness is the balancing account itself. As long as the net balance in the balancing account is not nil, you can be sure that all the entries from the previous closing balances have not been entered as the opening balances.

 

In both the methods above, once you have entered all the opening balances, you can tally the balance sheets and confirm the correctness of the data entered and make any corrections if required.

I would suggest you not to give auto-approval rights to the person or persons entering opening balances. This would ensure that another person has to approve the transactions before they are recorded. You may assign the task of entering to junior resources as it involves more of manual work and finally a senior manager, CFO or auditor can approve in one go after comparing against the previous balance sheets.