General Ledger Opening Balances - Overview & Best Practices

Opening Balances represent the starting financial position of your business at the beginning of a new financial year. In Accountability, they are created from the prior year’s closing balances and used to carry forward Balance Sheet accounts such as Cash, Accounts Receivable, WIP, and Payables into the new year.

How they work

At year end:

• Profit & Loss accounts are closed to Retained Earnings
• Balance Sheet accounts carry forward into the next year

This carryforward requires running the Opening Balance process.

Steps:

• Go to Set Up Files > Company Settings
• Select Create GL Opening Balances
• Enter the new financial year
• Click Create

Why they are important

Opening Balances ensure the new year begins with the correct Balance Sheet values. Without them, those accounts may appear as zero and reports may display warnings or inconsistencies.

System message (Create or Ignore)

You may see:

“Opening balances may not be up to date – Create or Ignore”

This means the system has detected that Opening Balances are either missing or out of date, typically due to changes made in the prior year. To resolve this, select Create to refresh the balances.

Verification

To confirm Opening Balances exist:

• Go to Accounting > General Ledger > General Ledger Transaction Search
• Select Year, Filter for Opening Balance (Month 00) only
• Select a Balance Sheet account

If no results appear, Opening Balances have not been created.

Best practice

Create Opening Balances at the start of each financial year and run the process again if changes are made to prior‑year data. Opening Balances carry forward Balance Sheet values from one year to the next and must be created to ensure accurate financial reporting.