Opening Balance – the first step to accurate bookkeeping
The opening balance records how much was on each ledger account at the start of the year (or when you started using the system). Upload it from your accountant's annual closing ledger extract, enter it by hand, or generate it from the previous year. Year-end closing creates the next year's opening balance automatically.
Without an opening balance, the balances in the ledger extract would only include bookings made in the system – everything before would be missing.
On Ledger → Opening Balance, select the year. The top of the page shows whether an opening balance is set and whether the Debit and Credit sides are Balanced.
Three ways to set it
- Upload Excel – ask your accountant for the last annual closing ledger extract in Excel (.xlsx or .xls) and drop it on the upload area, or pick it with Import from Excel. The system reads the balance columns of the extract and saves them right away, then tells you how many accounts were imported and how many were skipped.
- Generate from previous year – if you already kept last year's books in the system, Generate from Previous Year builds the opening balance from last year's closing balances.
- Manual entry – type the Debit and Credit opening balance per account and click Save. You can also use the table to check and correct uploaded values.
Uploading or saving an opening balance again for an account replaces the earlier one.
What to check
- Debit and Credit totals must match – shown by the Balanced / Not balanced indicator.
- Skipped rows are accounts that are not in your chart of accounts or have a zero balance. If you need a missing account, add it on the Chart of Accounts page and upload the file again.
Starting mid-year: under Advanced you can set the start month if you don't start using the system in January.
At year-end: running Year-End Closing creates the next year's opening balance automatically. If you don't close the year in the system, use Generate from Previous Year or upload your accountant's closing extract.