Establishing
a Transition Date
It is important to carefully consider when your system is to begin Live
Operations, since this affects the opening data that is entered. In order
to minimize data entry, it is best to pick a time immediately following
a check run so that as many invoices as possible have been paid in full.
When the transition date has been established, you must identify the first
month of Live Operations in the Accounts Payable Parameters file.
When establishing a transition date and determining the way in which
account history records can be entered, the following options should be
considered.
Option 1: Entering Opening Transactions
in Initial Setup
You can use the Initial Setup Opening Entries menu to enter all of your
outstanding invoices and whatever payments or adjustments that may have
been made against them as Opening Transactions. If you choose this option,
you should enter Vendor History and Processed Invoices from the Initial
Setup File Maintenance menu for as many years as you wish to keep. You
may also want to enter your Outstanding Checks. Then, run Process Initial
Setup and End Initial Setup. The advantage of this option is that you
begin Live Operations with a good quantity of historical information;
the disadvantage of this option is that it requires a fair amount of data
entry.
Option 2: Entering Opening
Transactions in Live Operations
Alternatively, you can enter just the basic master file information,
run Process Initial Setup, and End Initial Setup. To begin Live Operations,
set your "Post to GL?" and "Post to IC?" fields in
the Parameters file to "no" 
. Then, enter your
outstanding invoices and any related adjustments and checks by the respective
data entry functions on the Daily Pulldown Menu; print journals; and post
these transactions. After your opening transactions are posted, you can
change your "Post to ..." fields in the Parameters file to their
proper values. The advantage of this option is that it requires fewer
keystrokes and automatically creates all your historical files. The disadvantage
of this option is that you have less beginning historical information.
If you choose the second option, you can "Change Phase" back
to Initial Setup and enter additional Vendor History, Processed Invoices,
and Outstanding Checks if you wish. In this case, however, you should
NOT run Process Initial Setup a second time; after your Vendor History
is entered, simply End Initial Setup.