Opening Balances

This option is used as a simple way to record an opening balance transaction for a customer.

To access this option you can select Tasks > Customer > Opening Balance from the main menu. Alternatively you can click the Transactions button in the Customer section and select Opening Balance from the menu.

Customer Ref.

If the selected customer is not the one you want to enter an opening balance transaction for then you can select the correct customer by entering their reference or clicking the Look-Up icon (magnifying glass) icon to search and locate the customer you want.

Date

Select the date that you want the opening balance transaction to be recorded on. Click the drop-down button to the right of the box to select a date from a calendar.

Reference

Enter a brief reference of up to 20 characters to identify the transaction. This is set to O/Bal by default.

Details

Enter the details about the transaction for future reference. You can enter up to 80 characters. This is set to Opening Balance by default.

Amount

Enter the value of the opening balance for the customer. If you want to set the customer's opening balance to be a credit balance then precede the value with a minus sign. This will then record the transaction as a Credit Note. A positive value amount will be recorded as an Invoice.

When you are ready to record your opening balance transaction click the Save or Save & Close buttons. The Save & Close button will immediately close this window after the saving is complete. The Save button will enable you to enter another opening balance transaction for a different customer after saving. Click the Close button to abandon any information you have entered.

When an opening balance transaction is saved the balancing entry is written automatically to the Opening Balance Control Account (see the Control Accounts page in Company Preferences). The VAT code used is the No VAT Rate which identifies that the transaction is unrelated to VAT (see the VAT page in Company Preferences).