Opening Balance or Bank Balance Adjustment

Opening Balance or Bank Balance Adjustment

How to put in an opening balance.

1. This should only be done to put in a balance when starting a new bank account when you are transferring in an amount from a previous client account  or if you are making an adjustment to your bank balance as it is incorrect then you can correct it, if you know that the balance has never been correct.
   

It should not be used just to correct the balance because items are missing

1. This should not be done just to make the bank balance right, as you should be doing daily reconciliation against the live bank balance on line and that way you would see if any items were missing. Missing items should then be added and you should not be adjusting the balance to match using this method.
   
2. To correct the balance you need to create a Journal, so click on the accounts icon, then select journal.
   
3. Enter the date you wish to make the journal for: Normally that would be the last day of the month or the 1st day of the month.
   
4. The description is normally Open Balance or Adjusted Balance. The amount with either be the actually opening balance or the amount you have to adjust the account by, regardless if you are reducing the amount or increasing the amount.
   
5. Remember a debit  will CREDIT the bank account (increase) if you want to reduce the amount you DEBIT the bank account, as it has to be double sided entry, you need make the other side against a control account (OPEN) Opening Balance. If it does not exist you will need to create it under accounts set-up control accounts