Opening Balances
Opening balances carry your existing financial position into TamilAccounting. They record what you owned, owed and held in stock at your cut-over date, so the books continue rather than start from nothing. Getting them right is the difference between a clean migration and months of reconciliation.
What an opening balance is
Your cut-over date is the point your old system stops and this one begins. Everything before it is summarised as an opening balance; everything after it is entered as a normal transaction. You are not re-entering history — you are stating where you stood on day one.
| What you carry across | How |
|---|---|
| Ledger balances — bank, capital, loans, accruals | Journal Entries import, from your trial balance |
| What customers owe you | Customer Opening Balance import |
| What you owe suppliers | Supplier Opening Balance import |
| Stock on hand | Inventory Adjustments import |
| Fixed assets and their depreciation | Fixed Assets import |
The Intermediate GL Account
This is the concept people trip on, so it is worth being precise. When you import a customer opening balance, the system debits Accounts Receivable — but double-entry needs a credit somewhere. The Intermediate GL Account is that other side.
| Import | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Opening Balance | Accounts Receivable | Intermediate GL Account |
| Supplier Opening Balance | Intermediate GL Account | Accounts Payable |
| Inventory Adjustments | Inventory | Inventory Adjustments account |
Use a dedicated account for this — commonly called Opening Balance Suspense or Migration Clearing. As you load each piece of your trial balance, the suspense balance moves. When everything is in, it should come to zero.
A non-zero suspense balance at the end is not a nuisance to be written off — it is the exact amount by which your migration does not agree. Find it before you go live, because it never gets easier to trace.
Order of work
- Set up the suspense account in your chart of accounts, if it does not already exist.
- Import customers and suppliers as master records. Balances cannot attach to parties that do not exist.
- Import items, so stock has something to attach to.
- Import customer opening balances, dated at cut-over.
- Import supplier opening balances, dated at cut-over.
- Import opening stock through Inventory Adjustments, valued at cost.
- Import the rest of the trial balance as a journal entry — bank, capital, loans, accruals, retained earnings.
- Check the suspense account is zero and the trial balance agrees.
Customer and supplier opening balances
Two approaches, and the choice matters more than it looks.
| Approach | Trade-off |
|---|---|
| One total per party | Fast to prepare. But a customer's balance is a single lump with no invoice behind it, so it cannot be allocated against a specific bill and your ageing report shows everything at one date. |
| One line per open invoice | More work up front. Each invoice keeps its own reference and due date, so ageing is accurate and payments allocate against real documents. |
If your customers pay against specific invoice numbers — and most do — import one line per open invoice. Reconciling a lump-sum balance against itemised remittances is a problem you will meet within the first month.
Set the Opening Balance Date to your cut-over date, so ageing calculates from the right point.
Opening stock
Opening stock comes in through the Inventory Adjustments import, using the adjustment_import.xlsx sample — or adjustment_import_no_batch.xlsx where you do not track batches.
| Setting | What to use |
|---|---|
| Stock Adjustment Date | Your cut-over date. |
| Default Location for QOH | The warehouse the stock physically sits in. Import per location where you hold stock in several places. |
| Skip If Stock Exists | Leave items that already carry a quantity untouched. Useful when re-running a partial import. |
Value stock at cost, not at selling price. The figure you import becomes the cost basis for every future sale, so an inflated opening cost understates margin on everything sold from that stock.
The trial balance journal
Everything not covered by the party and stock imports comes across as a journal entry — bank balances, capital, loans, accruals, prepayments, retained earnings.
- Date it at your cut-over date.
- Exclude Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Inventory. Those arrived through their own imports, and including them again doubles them.
- Post the balancing figure to the suspense account, which should then net to zero against the earlier imports.
Verifying
| Check | Expected result |
|---|---|
| Suspense / Intermediate account balance | Zero |
| Trial balance total | Matches your old system at cut-over |
| Customer ageing total | Matches Accounts Receivable in the trial balance |
| Supplier ageing total | Matches Accounts Payable in the trial balance |
| Stock valuation report | Matches the Inventory account balance |
| Bank balances | Match your statements at cut-over |
Work through these in the Go-Live Checklist before you start transacting.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Balances dated after cut-over | Ageing is wrong and the first period's reports do not agree. |
| Receivables included in both the party import and the journal | Debtors doubled; suspense will not clear. |
| Stock valued at selling price | Margin understated on everything sold from opening stock. |
| Suspense written off to make it balance | Hides a real error and misstates the profit and loss. |
| Lump-sum customer balances | Payments cannot be allocated to invoices; ageing is meaningless. |
| Going live before the trial balance agrees | New transactions pile on top of an error that then has to be unpicked. |
Related pages
- Getting Started — the full onboarding path
- Importing Your Data — the import framework and rules
- Setup Wizard — where the default accounts are set
- Go-Live Checklist — verify before you commit
- Supplier Payment — settling opening payables
- Customer Payment — collecting opening receivables