Open Item and Balance Forward conversions

[LouisaEls]

Hi there,

What are the implications of open item and balance forward conversions in Pastel?

[Neville Bailey]

Hi Louisa,

To convert from Open Item processing to Balance Forward processing is a simple and quick procedure. The implications of not having Open Item processing is that you will not be able to allocate payments/receipts to specific outstanding invoices.

However, converting from Balance Forward processing to Open Item processing is a more "messy" affair.

When you convert, the system will give you the option of either creating a single open item transaction for the entire existing balance outstanding, or a single open item transaction for each ageing period for the existing balance outstanding.

The implications are that, until the balance outstanding at the time of conversion is unpaid, any receipts/payments will have to allocated to these open item transactions, which will not be broken down at the invoice level. Any new invoices created after the conversion will become individual open item transactions.

A further complication relates to your customer statements - initially the statements will reflect a single line item for each open item transaction at the time of conversion, which will not make any sense to your customers. However, there is a way around this until the converted balances work themselves out of the system. Under Setup...Customers...Statements, you have the option to continue presenting your statements in Balance Forward format, even though you are processing in Open Item mode. Once all the converted balances have worked themselves out of the system, you can reset the statement layout to Open Item.