No beginning balances in FRx balance sheet

I should have included this in my last post about the most common technical support questions. Usually around this time of year I get a rash of calls about how Dynamics is broken. Seems like all the balance sheet accounts don't have beginning balances even though their P and L have correct numbers.

Dynamics has been this way since the beginning of time. You will not have beginning balances until you close out the previous year (P and L accounts start with $0 each year so they are not effected). I know what you're thinking. "I'm not ready to close out the year yet". I usually have 2 responses to that objection.

1. You can still post entries to the GL to the most recent historical year. So even if you close out the year you can still make your audit adjustments etc. If you do choose this option be aware that the entry will freak you out. It will look like it posted the entry twice. The first is the original entry, the second is the system automatically adjusting the beginning balances for the open year. The second entry is always on the last day of the fiscal year (say 12/31/20xx). If you made your entry in the historical year on 12/31/20xx it will look like it's duplicating. No worries. That's what the system is supposed to do.


2. Do some fancy formatting in FRx. I would recommend a column layout similar to the below screen shot (click on picture for a closer look). The first 2 GL columns would be non printing columns. The first GL column give you YTD numbers for the 12th period of the previous year. The second column gives you YTD numbers for the current year. Column D adds both together.

You would probably want to save this as a seperate column layout so you can adjust back the original layout after you close out the year.

Tricky way to allow you to get a BS and procrastinate your year end close.