If you are upgrading to Pearl from an existing accounting system, even if it is Excel spreadsheets, you'll have some data that needs to be transferred to Pearl to make sure that all the account balances are up to date.

The set of data on the last day of your previous system is called the Closing Trial Balance. This is entered into Pearl as an Opening Trial Balance. Your accountant or book keeper should be able to prepare a Closing Trial Balance from your existing systems.

What information do I need to provide?

You'll need to have the following information to build up the Opening Trial Balance (OTB) for Pearl:

• Bank account balance(s) 
• Any outstanding debts from the company to directors or loan providers
• Detailed report of what your customers owe you (the Debtors list)
• Detailed report of what you owe your suppliers (the Creditors list)
• An accurate stock take, including all assets that the company owns
• Any outstanding VAT on sales or purchases that has not yet been included in a VAT return
• Any outstanding wages and payroll, including NI and sundry amounts that are owed to staff or the Inland Revenue

These reports should be generated for the last day that you use your old system. Note that the reports do not have to be generated on the day itself, you can produce the Closing Trial Balance from your previous system a few days later once bank balances have settled.

How do I enter the Opening Trial Balance?

1. Click Accounts->Enter journal from the main menu
2. Click "Opening Trial Balance" on the right hand side
3. Choose the date as the first day of accounting in Pearl. Do not enter transactions into your old accounting system after this date.
   
4. Enter the debits and credits for the appropriate nominal accounts.  Note that the sum of debits needs to equal the sum of credits.

Enter the sum total of the Debtors into the Suspense account. We will build it back into the Debtors account invoice by invoice so that payments can be cleared against the respective customers when the funds clear later. Do the same for Creditors - enter the total amount into the suspense account, so that we can build up a list of Supplier debt within Pearl.

Building the Debtors list

The Debtors list is the list of customers who have outstanding invoices. The total Debtors amount will have been entered into the OTB as a DEBIT to the Suspense Account. For each customer we'll move the appropriate proportion of this total across to the Debtors account (1100). This can be done before or after the OTB has been entered.

1. Ensure that each customer has been created as a contact within Pearl
2. Click Accounts->Customers->Enter quick invoice from the main menu.
3. Enter the total value of the customer balance as a T9 (not taxable) invoice, on the Suspense account code. If, alternatively, you want to enter each individual customer invoice separately, repeat these 5 steps for each invoice.
4. Enter the same date as your OTB.
   
5. Submit the page. You'll now see the debt showing on the Accounts->Customers->Customer debt.

Repeat for your other customers.

Building the Creditors list

The same process should be followed to make sure that Pearl has an accurate record of what you owe your suppliers. It's the same process as for customers, except that you use the Accounts->Suppliers->Enter quick invoice menu option. 

Once you have finished building up your Debtors and Creditors, the balance on the Suspense account should be zero. Check this using the Trial Balance report, to the date at which you created the OTB.

A typical Trial Balance

This is a very short Trial balance but gives an example of what is required.