Loading

Opening Balances for Existing Assets

When you move to ActiveManage from another system, your existing assets already have accumulated depreciation. An opening balance records that figure, and the months already charged, on each asset so depreciation continues from where the old system stopped instead of starting again from full cost.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → ERP - Operations:

  • Asset Register — the console: the Opening balance button on each asset's card

Admin Panel → Fixed Assets:

  • Fixed Assets — the same console

Each opening balance is recorded in the asset's History as an Opening balance event.

What an opening balance does, and does not do

  • It records the accumulated depreciation brought forward and the last month charged, in every book the asset depreciates in.
  • It posts no journal. The cost and accumulated depreciation reach the ledger with your opening trial balance, which finance loads separately.
  • Depreciation then continues from the month after, over the remaining life. Straight line spreads what is left over the life less the months already charged.

When the button appears

The Opening balance button is shown on an asset's card only when all of these are true:

  • you hold ERP: Finance or ERP: Administration (or are an architect), and can write to the register;
  • no depreciation has been charged on the asset in ActiveManage yet;
  • the asset was not capitalised from a document here, has no journals posted here, and was acquired before the company's first journal.

In other words, it is for assets that existed before go-live, entered before the first depreciation run.

Loading opening balances

  1. Register each existing asset with its original Acquired on date and Cost, its class, method and life (see Assets & Maintenance).
  2. Open the asset's card and click Opening balance.
  3. Enter the Accumulated depreciation brought forward (at most the cost).
  4. Enter the Months already charged and the Last month charged. Depreciation here starts the month after.
  5. Add a Narrative, for example "migrated from Sage, register at 31/08/2026".
  6. Click Record opening balance. The message gives the resulting net book value and the month depreciation continues from.

To correct one before the first run, open it again and tick Replace the opening balance already recorded.

What goes wrong

  • The button is missing: depreciation has already been charged here, the asset came from a document, or you lack ERP: Finance or ERP: Administration.
  • "… already has depreciation charged here in X: an opening balance comes before the first charge."
  • "N months charged is more than the useful life of M months in X."
  • "The last month charged cannot be in the future."
  • "X already has an opening balance in BOOK - replace it instead."
  • The register and ledger disagree after go-live: the opening trial balance used different figures from the opening balances. Reconcile them before the first run.

Worked example

A company goes live on 1 September. Its old system shows a machine bought in March 2023 for 48,000, straight line over 120 months, with 12,000 accumulated after 30 months charged to August 2026. Finance registers the machine with cost 48,000 and acquired March 2023, then records an opening balance of 12,000, 30 months, last month charged August 2026. Net book value is 36,000, and September's run charges 36,000 over the remaining 90 months: 400.00, the same as the old system.

Recommendations

  • Load all opening balances before the first depreciation run.
  • Use the old system's register at the go-live date as the single source.
  • Reconcile the register to the opening trial balance by class.
  • Record where the figures came from in the narrative.