Balance Sheet vs. Income Statement Accounts

When account period records are created for Balance Sheet accounts (account types 10-40), an additional account period record is created for each account automatically by the system in period zero (0).  The period 0 account period record is used to store the starting balance for each balance sheet account in each accounting year. 

The period 0 account period is not created by the system for income statement accounts as these accounts do not have balances that carry forward from year to year (income statement accounts are zeroed out at the end of each accounting year unlike balance sheet accounts).

The General Ledger System includes a program that can be used to take the ending balance sheet account balances from one year and use them to create the beginning balances for the next year.  This program and other year end procedures are discussed in the Procedures section of this document.

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Default Number of Accounting Periods