Import Historical Balances for GL

How to Import Historical Balances

Historical Balance import lets you load ending balances by period (month) for each GL account. This data powers financial reports that use Historical Balance columns—for example, to compare prior-year balances to current-year balances.

Where to find it

Tools Menu, Getting Started — Open the Historical Balance tab
Tools Menu, Imports and Exports — Open the Historical Balance Import tab.

Import steps

Select the fiscal year in the dropdown (the year whose historical balances you are importing).
Get a CSV in the correct format:
- Download empty CSV template — Use this if you are entering data from scratch. Select the fiscal year first so the template has the right number of period columns (e.g. 12 months).
- Export current GL balances — Use this to export your current entity’s GL ending balances for a fiscal year into the same CSV format. You can then edit the file or use it as a starting point.
Fill in or edit the CSV so it matches the format below (see CSV format).
In the import form, select the same fiscal year again, then choose your CSV file and click Import.

CSV format

The first row must be the header. Each row after that is one GL account. Columns:

Column	Meaning
`GL #`	Chart of accounts account number. Must match an existing GL account.
`Account name`	Account name (alternative to GL # for matching).
`Opening Balance`	Balance at the start of the fiscal year (before the first period). Used to calculate how much the balance changed in Period 1.
`Period 1 Balance` … `Period 12 Balance`	Ending balance at the end of each month (Period 1 = first month of the fiscal year, Period 2 = second month, etc.). Use as many period columns as your fiscal year has months (e.g. 12).

Amounts can include commas (e.g. 1,234.56); the import will strip commas. Leave a cell blank or use 0 for zero.

Tip: Each “Period N Balance” is the month-end balance for that month. The system uses these (and Opening Balance) to compute the change during each month and stores that for reports.

After importing

Imported historical balances replace any existing historical balance data for that entity and fiscal year. You can run reports that use Historical Balance columns to confirm the numbers.

Reset

To clear all historical balance data for the current entity, use the Reset button on the same tab. This removes historical balances for that entity only. You will be asked to confirm.

Warning: Reset cannot be undone. Only use it when you intend to clear historical balance data for the entity (e.g. before re-importing a corrected file).