# General Business Category > Accounting Forum >  How to change opening balances in Pastel

## C3l35t3

I need to change the opening balances in Pastel for period march 2011 - feb 2012.
There were changes made to year march 2010 - feb 2011, therefore all the closing balances changed. So the opening balances for the new year needs to change as well.

First of all is this possible?
If it is, how do I go about changing the opening balances for year march 2011 - feb 2012 without losing all the transaction entered already in this year.?

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## Neville Bailey

I am not at my computer right now (I'm currently sitting in my car, typing this on my BlackBerry), but I will give you a detailed reply this evening. 

Bottom line, it is possible!

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## C3l35t3

Yay! Thank you Neville.

I will await your feedback then this evening.

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## Neville Bailey

OK, here is how to go about it:

Print a trial balance as at 28 February 2012, so that the existing comparative figures for February 2011 are displayed;Compare the existing February 2011 closing balances with the adjusted February 2011 closing balances, so that you can calculate by how much each account needs to be debited or credited in order to agree with the adjusted balances;Open the General Journal and click on the Settings button at the bottom;Untick the box named "This Year Transactions" and click on the Close button;You should now see the words "Last Year" displayed at the bottom of the journal;Set the period to 12 - the date should now reflect 28 February 2011;Process the necessary adjustments to all the affected accounts;If there are no adjustments effecting the cashbooks, or the customer and supplier accounts, or the inventory items, then your journal should balance once you have captured all the adjustments;If there are any non-general journal adjustments to be made, then the general journal can be balanced by allocating the balancing amount to a suspense account;If there are any cashbook adjustments to be made, then follow steps 3 and 7 above after opening the relevant cashbooks, using either the Payments or Receipts tab, and allocating the adjustment to the suspense account;If there are any customer or supplier account adjustments to be made, then follow steps 3 to 7 above for both the customer and supplier journals, and enter the suspense account in the Contra column;If there are any inventory item adjustments to be made, then open the inventory journal, then click on the drop-down arrow at the "Period" box at the top left of the journal, and select "12 - 01/02/11 - 28/02/11 February Last Year";Process the necessary adjustments for each affected inventory item, and enter the suspense account code in the "GL Account" column;If you have processed and updated all of the above journals correctly, then the suspense account balance will be zero as at 28 February 2011.
And that's it! Any income and expenditure adjustments will automatically adjust the brought-forward retained income account for 2011/2012 and all the opening balance sheet account balances will be adjusted.

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Dave A (25-Oct-11)

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## C3l35t3

Thank you for the above information Neville!!! Much appreciated.

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## Lalo4458

Hi, I have a problem where the closing balance on a vehicle finance account was incorrect on our financial statements, as prepared by our auditors at the end of the financial year, if I compare it to the statement I received from the finance company.  This means that my opening balance in the new year will also be incorrect.  Do I change the opening balance to the actual balance as per the finance company's statement when I post the opening balance, or do I use the amount stated by our bookkeepers on our financial statements?  How do I correct this so that my financial records reflect the correct outstanding amount owing to the finance company at the beginning of the new financial year?  Sorry if this doesn't make sense, I am trying to do our business' books myself, without any formal bookkeeping training, and our auditors doesn't seem interested/doesn't have the time to assist me!

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