You will need to do this if you are moving from another accounting system to Sage Accounting.

• Check your VAT Scheme and Accounts Start Date is correct. See Set up financial year, accounting dates and VAT
• Make sure you have a copy of your trial balance from your accountant

How it works

Here you enter a value (Debit or Credit) for each ledger account. You can get these values from the trial balance from your previous system.

The total value of all opening balances must balance to conform to bookkeeping rules.

This means the total amount of all the values in the Debit column must equal the total value of all the values in the Credit column.

When the Debit and Credit total don't match, we add the difference to the special Opening Balances ledger account (9998).

In general, your opening balances should balance. If there is a value on your Opening Balance ledger account, check you have entered the correct values from your trial balance.

Things to consider

You can't enter the opening balance for bank accounts or the Trade Debtors and Trade Creditors accounts here.

• The Trade Debtors values calculate from the opening balances of customers. Read how to Enter customer opening balances >
• The Trade Creditors values calculate from the opening balance of your suppliers. Read how to Enter your supplier opening balances >
• You enter your Bank opening balances separately. Read how to Enter an opening balance for a bank account >

Enter opening balances

1. From Settings, then Business Settings, find the Opening Balances section.
2. Select Nominal Ledger.
3. Enter the date for your opening balances.
4. This must be on or before the date you've set as the start date for your accounts.
5. Enter a reference so you can see which transactions are opening balances on your reports.
6. Your bank accounts and Trade Debtors and Trade Creditors show at the top. 
   Start from the first row where you haven't entered any ledger accounts.
7. Choose a ledger account from the drop-down.
8. Add further details if required.
9. Enter a Debit or Credit value from your trial balance.
10. Repeat for all your remaining ledger accounts and Save.

If you don't have a full list of opening balances, you can come back and finish this at any time. You can also update your existing opening balances at any time.

Opening balances for VAT

This value you enter for VAT on sales or VAT on purchases here as an opening balance is not included on your VAT return.

Record your first invoice