This article explains how to capture and verify learner opening balances in d6, and how to post Journal 1 — the opening balance journal that confirms your finance migration is complete. The journal 1 will be done by your implementer.
Finance > Debtors > Opening Balances | Finance > General Ledger > Journal
Every learner in d6 must have an opening balance, even if that balance is zero. The total of all learner opening balances must equal your debtors control account balance from your previous system. Journal 1 then confirms that your bank balances, debtors, and income received in advance all reconcile correctly. You have three months from your sign-off date to provide your Trial Balance or Audit financial statement.
Navigate to Finance > Debtors > Learner Opening Balances.
The school will provide our implementer with an electronic Debtor Aging Excel sheet. The implementer will then attempt to match the data to the d6 system using a VLOOKUP to bulk import the balances.If any learners cannot be successfully matched, it remains the school’s responsibility to manually capture those remaining balances. Please note that the school must confirm that an opening balance has been captured for every learner, including those with a zero balance.
Check that the total of all learner opening balances matches the debtors Aging from your previous system.
If a learner balance is incorrect, adjust the individual learner account. The Debtor control account is system-managed and direct entries on the learner opening balances will automatically be added to your Debtor control account that will be posted on Journal 1.
Your implementer and the Skul need to confirm the title learner opening balances before you can post Journal 1 as well as any other Debtor or creditor balances.
Journal 1 is the opening balance journal that brings your General Ledger into balance at your finance start date. Before posting:
Every bank account balance matches your previous system as at your finance start date.
The journal balances: Debtors minus income received in advance minus bad debt provision equals your total learner opening balance.
Debits equal credits: The journal will not save if it is out of balance.
Navigate to Finance > General Ledger > Journal.
Click Add and select the finance start date.
Enter each line item: bank balances, debtors, income received in advance, bad debt provision, and any other opening entries.
Confirm that the total debits equal the total credits.
Save and post the journal.
You have three months from your sign-off date to provide the d6 implementation team with your Trial Balance/ Audit Financial Statement from your previous system. This is used to verify that your d6 opening balances match. Submit it via your implementer or to implementations@d6.co.za.
Can not post directly to the debtors control account. You can not journalise against the debtors control account is automatically maintained by d6 based on individual learner balances.
Do not post Journal 1 too early. Post Journal 1 only once all learner opening balances are confirmed and all cashbook opening balances are verified. Posting prematurely and then making corrections is complex and risky.
Journal 1 must balance. Debits and credits must be equal. If they are not, the system will reject the journal.
Sometimes, discrepancies can occur between family profiles. If your administration and financial systems ran separately, the data may not always correlate, meaning certain families will need to be merged or split.
How to resolve this:
Navigate to the Learner’s Profile.
Select either New Family (to split them) or Merge Families.
If you require any help with this process, please reach out to our support team for assistance
Enter R0.00 as their opening balance. Every learner must have an opening balance record in d6, even if it is zero. Learners without an opening balance record will cause the debtors control total to be incorrect.
Adjust the individual learner accounts that are incorrect — do not adjust the debtors control account directly. Work through each learner until the total matches. Contact your d6 implementer if you cannot identify the discrepancy.
No. All learner opening balances must be in place and verified before Journal 1 is posted. Posting Journal 1 prematurely and then adding learner balances afterwards will break the reconciliation between your debtors control and your learner debtor list.
You have three months from your finance sign-off date. Submitting early is encouraged — it allows your implementer to confirm the migration before you have processed any live transactions, making corrections much simpler if any discrepancies are found.
Important Note on January Billing & Opening Balances:
If your system implementation begins at the start of the year, please remember that January fees will be billed on the new system. Consequently, you must carry over the learners' opening balances even if they made payments in the previous year.
For example, many schools run their January billing early (in November or December). In this scenario, the learner's opening balance must be brought into the new system as a credit amount. This ensures that when the system automatically runs the January billing, the pre-paid balance is correctly offset.
Last updated: June 2026 | Version 1.0