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Account opening balances are the balances of your accounts as at the first day of your Start Date*.

Existing Business

If you were in business prior to your Start Date*, your accounts are likely to have balances. It is crucial to enter these balances so that you'll be able to continue tracking them in future reports such as the balance sheet, your bank accounts, inventory, receivables and payables.

Note:
1) Start Date refers to the Date you start utilizing Financio for your business accounting.
2) It is highly recommended that you consult your accounting professional before entering an opening balance. 

What to enter

The balances you enter depend on whether your Start Date* is also the first month of your financial year. If your conversion month:

• is the first month of your financial year, you enter the opening balances of your asset, liability and equity accounts only.
• is not the first month of your financial year (for example, if your financial year starts in July but your conversion month is September), you can enter the opening balances of all your accounts.

Your account opening balances can be retrieved from your trial balance report, balance sheet or profit & loss report prepared for the period immediately prior to your conversion date. If you were using a different accounting software prior to this, you will also be able to generate your required opening balances from there.

Additional notes about bank account balances:

You can enter the following amounts as the opening balance of a bank account:

• the bank account balance that appears on your balance sheet or trial balance reports as at the day prior to your conversion date. For example, if your start date is 1 July, this is the bank account balance as at 30 June.

• Your cashbook balance should account for uncleared deposits and payments. You can calculate your cashbook balance by taking into account the transactions not yet cleared by your bank as at the conversion date and the balance that appears on your bank statement at that date.

  For example, assume that RM1,000 worth of deposits and RM1,500 worth of payments were uncleared as at your conversion date (that is, they had not appeared on a bank statement). The cashbook balance would be calculated as shown below:

  Bank statement balance on conversion date	RM10,000
  ADD uncleared deposits	+ RM1,000
  SUBTRACT uncleared payments	– RM1,500
  Balance balance on conversion date	= RM9,500

  Source Reference: http://help.myob.com/wiki/display/ar/Enter+account+opening+balances

New Business

If you are a starting up business, the only thing you'll need to enter in your opening balance would be your Shareholder's Capital or Loan aka your business startup capital.

Example Scenario:

Faith started a cafe business with a capital of S$50,000. Out of the total capital, S$48,000 is kept in the bank while the remaining $2,000 is kept available as petty cash.

• Steps 1:
  Faith needs to record the total capital under the shareholder's capital found in the opening balance.
  
  
• Steps 2:
  Next, Faith needs to record S$48,000 under the bank account (DBS Bank), with the remaining S$2,000 recorded under petty cash.

• Step 3:
  Upon entering the opening balance, Faith should see that the accounts are balanced and can proceed to save the opening balance.

In just 3 simple steps, Faith has successfully completed the opening balances. Simply follow the steps above and you too can have your opening balances setup in no time.

*Note: If your business does not have any startup capital, you may skip this step entirely.