This explains how to enter the opening balance of a customer's account. You need to do this when you’ve started with Sage Accounting.

The opening balance is the total value of any outstanding invoices or credit notes. To do this, you can manually enter your customer opening balances or you can import them.

Before you start

• Check your VAT Scheme and Accounts Start Date is correct
• Create your customer records
• Gather a list of any outstanding customer invoices and credit notes
• You cannot enter opening balances for customers using reverse charge. To correctly record VAT reverse charge transactions, you must use the Invoice or Credit Note option Find out about reverse charge VAT here

Enter opening balances

Enter each outstanding invoice as a separate opening balance or enter it as a single amount.

Entering them separately makes it easier to match to payments you receive later.

1. From Settings, choose Business Settings.
2. In the Opening Balances section, select Customer.
3. Check the Accounts Start Date is correct. and change it if required. This is the date you started using Accounting. All opening balances must be before this date.
4. Select New Opening Balance, then complete the details
   • Type - For outstanding invoices, choose Inv. For outstanding credit notes, choose CRN.
   • Date. Enter the date of the invoice or credit note. This date must be before the Accounts Start Date.
   • Total -  the outstanding amount of the invoice or credit note. If you use the Cash Basis VAT, enter the: Net and VAT Rate.

Outstanding payments

Enter any outstanding payments for this customer as credit notes. Allocate these to the relevant invoice at a later date.

Multi-currency customers

If the customer uses a different currency, enter the:

• Total. Enter the amount in the customer’s currency
• Exchange rate. Enter the rate used for the original transaction

Check your balances are correct

Use the Aged Debtors report to check the total amount each customer owes you.

1. From Reporting, choose More.
2. Choose Aged Debtors.
3. Enter your account's start date, and select Calculate.

The report shows the total amount owed for each customer and the total.

Read more about the Aged Debtors report