General Ledger

Dynamics 365 Business Central – How I post opening balances for the General Ledger in Business Central

11th Jun 20242nd Feb 2026Gavin WhittakerLeave a comment

Introduction

In previous posts I’ve looked at how I post opening balances for various modules in Business Central. Links to these articles can be found below:

How I post opening balances for Fixed Assets

How I post opening balances for Bank Accounts

How I post opening balancing for Goods Receiving Not Invoiced (Expected Costs)

How I post opening balances for Sales and Purchase Ledger.

Today I wanted to discuss how I post opening balances for the General Ledger. (I perhaps should have started with this one 😀)

I use a couple of approaches when posting opening balances for the General Ledger, choosing the method based on the level of transactional detail required. In this post I’ll discuss all three methods including which one I commonly recommend and why.

Please note in all the methods described below, right after posting the opening balance journal, I print and save a copy of the General Ledger Trial Balance. I also make a note of the G/L Register from the “G/L Register” page in Business Central. (although I name the batch OPENBAL-GL so its easy to spot anyway)

Preparation

For all the methods, I use a predefined configuration package that I export to Excel, ask the client to populate with data, and then import back into Business Central.

This includes key fields like the Posting Date, Account Number, Dimensions, and Amounts. A copy of the configuration package can be found here along with other free stuff 😊

A screen shot of Excel Spreadsheet is below:

*Example of Excel Template for Opening Balances*

Method 1 – Post Total Opening Balances as of Go Live Date

This method involves posting the balance of each General Ledger code in one journal, using one document number, on the required go live date.

Therefore if you were going LIVE with Business Central on the 31st of May 2024 you’d collect your General Ledger balances as of this date from your existing system and populate the Excel Spreadsheet with this data.

Important considerations should be given to the control accounts such as the Sales and Purchase control account to ensure these balance to any imported Sales and Purchase Ledger transactions.

Once the journal has been imported, and you are happy with the balances, you can post the journal to record the opening balances.

This is the quickest and easiest way to post opening balances for the General Ledger, but it has limitations. The primary drawback is the lack of historical financial reporting in Business Central. In contrast, Method 2, while more time-consuming, provides greater detail.

Method 2 – Post Total Opening Balances and Period Balances

This method involves posting opening balances for a set period prior to your go-live date and then posting additional period balances up to the go-live date, resulting in a final go-live balance.

For example, if you plan to go live with Business Central on 31st of May 2024, and want 12 months’ worth of summary information prior to this, you would post an opening position as of 31st of May 2023, using a document number like “OPENBAL-GL-MAY23.” Then, you would post balances for each of the 12 monthly periods from June 2023 through May 2024 using different document numbers, such as “PERIODBAL-GL-JUN23” and “PERIODBAL-GL-JUL23.” all building up to a total balance as of May 2024.

This approach allows you to report month-on-month using only Business Central data as soon as you start using the system. For instance, after being live with Business Central for June 2024, you could compare June 2023 data to the live data for June 2024.

Method 3 – Posting Opening Balances and Detailed Information

The final method can only realistically be used when the company is very small and doesn’t have lots of transactions.

This method involves posting an opening position followed by the detail information for a set period of time.

For example if your year end is 31st of December 2023 and you wanted to go live with Business Central as of 31st of May 2024 you could post the opening balance from your existing system as of the 31st of December 2023 and then enter each transaction manually from 31st of December 2023 to the 31st of May 2024. (in this scenario it doesn’t really matter when you go live as you are entering detailed information from the 31st of December 2023)

As you can imagine this is the most labour intensive method so is generally only used on companies with few transactions.

** You also have to post opening balances for the sub ledgers as of 31st of December 2023 and then enter detail information. This can be very labour intensive if there are lots of transactions.

Conclusion

All methods provide a solution for posting opening balances into Business Central. I prefer to use Method 2 because, although it requires a bit more effort, it allows for comparison reporting as soon as you go live with Business Central.

Thanks for reading!

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Dynamics 365 Business Central – Why do I have the popup “General Journal Template List” when opening the General Journal page

24th Apr 202424th Apr 2024Gavin Whittaker2 Comments

Introduction

A client reported different behaviour when accessing the “General Journal” page across their various companies in Business Central.

When searching and selecting “General Journal” in one company, it opened the “General Journal” page immediately. However, in another company, they were presented with a “General Journal Template List” page. At this point, they had to select a template, before they could being entering the journal.

In this post, I’ll show why the companies are exhibiting different behaviour when trying to do the same task.

The Pop Up

In one company, when searching and selecting “General Journal” they are presented with the “General Journal Template List” page below:

This differs from the other company, which immediately takes them into the “General Journal” page so they can begin entering journals.

More on General Journal Templates

The clue for why this is happening lies in the heading of page that pops up – “General Journal Template List”.

Although we don’t have much interaction with General Journal Templates, one exists for each type of Journal that you can create (i.e. Payment Journal, Cash Receipt Journal, General Journal etc), providing default information for all their journal batches.

For example, a General Journal Template exists for journals that are entered via the “Payment Journals” page, one exists for journals that are entered via the “Cash Receipts Journals”, one exists for Journals entered via the “General Journal” page and so on.

The batches into which journals are entered are specific to the General Journal Template. Incidentally, this explains why a batch created in a “General Journal” page isn’t visible in the “Payment Journals” page, and vice versa.

The Issue

As the pop up is asking us to select a “General Journal Template”, the answer to the issue must lie in how these are configured.

I therefore open the “General Journal Template” page and spotted someone had created an additional template of Type “General”.

After a little digging, it appears a new user had mistakenly created the “GENERAL2” template when trying to create a new batch.

To resolve the issue I simply deleted the duplicate General Journal Template and the pop up has now disappeared.

Conclusion

While it’s technically possible to have multiple General Journal Templates for each Type, it’s not typically considered standard practice.

Rather than creating multiple General Journal Templates, its generally recommended to create multiple batches within each Template.

Thanks for reading!

Dynamics 365 Business Central – How I post Opening Balances for Bank Accounts

20th Feb 20242nd Feb 2026Gavin Whittaker7 Comments

Introduction

This blog was inspired by a forum post I answered recently that you can find here. The OP had issues reconciling their bank accounts because the opening balance hadn’t been posted. It also follows on nicely from other blogs I’ve posted with regards to posting opening balances. These are below:

How I post opening balances for reducing balance fixed assets and How I post opening balances for Expected Costs

In this blog I’ll show the steps I use when posting opening balances for bank accounts.

Preparation

When going LIVE with Business Central I always recommend reconciling all the outstanding bank entries in the source system. This is much easier nowadays as most payments are made electronically. Therefore there tends to be less “Unpresented Cheques” delayed by either the postal service or waiting to be deposited in the bank. This includes cash received from customers or payments made to suppliers.

If everything has been reconciled, it makes posting the opening balance much easier and cleaner.

Method for Posting the Opening Balance

When going LIVE with Business Central, I’ll usually have been provided with an opening trial balance, which includes the reconciled bank account balance which has been posted to the GL. I’ll use this as the basis of the bank account opening balance journal.

Its worth noting you could post the bank account opening balance at the same time as the GL opening trial balance, however I prefer keeping the two entries separate. Also, there are situations where an opening trial balance might not be available, whereas the opening bank position has been provided. (in the forum post the client had gone LIVE without a bank opening position, and this method can also be used to post a retrospective bank opening position)

For the bank account opening balance, I then need to post an entry that posts a Debit and Credit to the same Bank account GL code, but also creates a Bank Account Ledger Entry.

Worked Example

In this example I have a bank account that has an opening balance of £1000.00, which has already been posted to the GL. Therefore the GL code has a balance of £1000.00, however the Bank Account has a £0.00 balance.

As the GL has the correct balance, I need to post an entry that only updates the Bank Account Balance.

As mentioned above, to do this I’ll create a journal that debits and credits the 40050 code, but also creates a Bank Account Ledger Entry I can reconcile.

Therefore I’ll post the journal below, that posts to the Bank Account and balances to the Bank Account GL code

This creates GL entries that both debit and credit the Bank Account GL code but also a Bank Account Ledger Entry that hits the Bank Account

After posting this I have a Bank Account Balance that matches the GL balance

Conclusion

This is a quick and easy method for posting opening balance entries to Bank Accounts. This can be done either during or after you receive the General Ledger opening balances.

I hope this helps when posting your opening balances or retrospectively fixing any issues with the bank account.

Thanks for reading!

Want further help with Business Central?

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