Opening Balance in Accounts

The opening balance is the balance that is brought forward at the beginning of an accounting period from the end of a previous accounting period or when starting out.

• This also applies when starting a new Company and would like your offline balances to be updated in ActiveBooks.

1. Introduction

• If you are a new company, you will have minimal opening balances to be imported.

• However, if you are migrating from a legacy accounting system like Tally or a Fox Pro based software you will have considerable data to be imported as opening balance.

• We recommend that you start using ActiveBooks for accounting from a new financial year, but you could start midway too.

• To set up your accounts, you will need the following for the “day” you start using accounting in ActiveBooks:

Assets

1. Stock assets (stock in hand).

2. Fixed assets like furnitures, computers, etc.

3. Accounts Receivables (AR) i.e. unpaid invoices which you have sent to your Customers.

4. Current assets like bank balances, cash in hand, deposits, etc.

Liabilities

1. Capital accounts like your shareholder’s (or owner’s) capital

2. Current liabilities like loans, salary payables etc

3. Accounts Payables(AP) i.e. unpaid invoices which your suppliers have sent you

• If you were using another accounting software before, you should close financial statements in that software first.

• The closing balance of the accounts should be updated as an opening balance in the ActiveBooks.

• Before starting to update opening balance, ensure that your Chart of Accounts has all the Accounts required.

Opening entries can be created using the Opening Invoice Creation Tool in ActiveBooks.

Note: Opening entry is only for Balance Sheet accounts and not for Profit and Loss Accounts.

2. Opening Balance of Assets

2.1 Fixed Assets

2.2 Stock Assets

2.3 Accounts Receivable

2.4 Current Assets

3. Opening Balance of Liabilities

3.1 Capital Accounts

3.2 Current Liabilities

3.3 Accounts Payable

4. Verify the Opening Balance

Once all assets and liabilities have been imported, the balance of Temporary Opening ledger should be zero.