When you are entering transactions for your beginning balances, you may need to keep a record of past sales or purchases. However these past transactions should not affect the current general ledger nor appear as aging data. In other words, these dollar amounts should be kept on record, but be excluded from accounting processes and balances.
Import Spreadsheet 'Historical' Column
The invoices import template and purchases import template allow you to flag invoice and purchase records as "historical" information. This feature can help streamline the implementation process — invoices and purchases that are currently open can be imported for your Go-Live Date. Later on, you can import years' worth of historical records.
You can specify this detail using the import spreadsheet's Historical column:
- To exclude an invoice/purchase from accounting processes and balances, enter True, T, Yes, Y, 1, etc
- To include an invoice/purchase in accounting processes and balances, enter False, F, No, N, 0, etc
To help in identifying these historical transactions, we recommend that you include record titles that reflect the identifiers used in the previous system. For example, you might set an Invoice ID in aACE at 50000, then set the Invoice Title to "Customer PO #9385" or similar.
After you import these records, the detail view of the record shows the identifier "Historical Invoice" highlighted in yellow at the top. The records are imported in Pending status. When you move them to Open status, aACE:
- Will immediately move the records to Closed status
- Will change any historical balance (see below) to zero
- Will not create any GL entries or aging entries
Import Spreadsheet 'Historical Balance' Column
The aACE import spreadsheet for invoices and purchases also includes a column for Historical Balance. When you populate this column and import the data, aACE will create a single line on the imported transaction for one unit of the "HIST" line item code and the specified balance. The HIST LIC can be linked to a 'historical balance' GL account used for migration purposes.
This functionality makes it easy to migrate transactions and amounts owed so you can record receipts and generate reports.