Topic: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

To Senior members and other developers,

I have a concern with bank accounts initial balances, suppose I am setting up FA for a new company, and the owner opens up a bank accounts with a debit deposits, how do you post that balance in the ledger without having to credit a certain account, since the money is not coming from any accounts in the system. HOW DO YOU RECORD THAT BALANCE???

Re: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

When such a bank balance is available it will be part of the balance sheet that came from the period just before you started on FA. Place all balance sheet entries in one Journal entry and they should contra one another. If you are doing it in parts, then use an intermediary "Suspense Account" which will zero itself out when all such balance sheet entries are imported in. In case allocations need to be done, use Debit Note / Credit Note for such bank / cash balances for the apportioned amounts.

Re: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

I am not sure if I understood well , what you are saying!!

Here my question:

I am a new company, I have no transactions at all, all my accounts debits are zero.
Now, I open up a bank account with initial debit of Xyz amount, how do I record that initial balance?
Keeping in mind that the deposits I am making are not coming from any of my GL Accounts incomes or whatever, it is my initial opening balance.
Money which could come from anywhere. HOW DO I RECORD IT in the bank ledger without having to credit a specific account?

"SINGLE ENTRY NEEDED HERE"

4 (edited by rafat 12/29/2019 02:29:23 pm)

Re: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

Its very easy.. You also need to talk to an accountant if these terms dont make sense.

https://frontaccounting.com/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=809

Will help you.

Basically .. the money you put in a bank account must come from some other account (in Accounting terms).. Its up to you to decide from where.

The Chart of Accounts you use is not restricted to what FA provides. You can add and remove the accounts as you wish. As long as you you know what types they are. (an Accountant will know).

I hope I am correct.

Re: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

FA is a double entry accounting system that accomodates single entry forms where the contra entry can be the cash account.

Re: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

@rafat  @apmuthu  ....

I think we all agree that when we install FA for the first time all accounts balances are ZERO right?
Now, I am creating a new bank account  in FA , automatically the account balance is set to ZERO also right?

Finally, I want to deposit money on my new bank account, remember this is a new company without any previous transactions, all GL Accounts balances are ZERO, when I am depositing that money to the bank which account am I going to post the CREDIT since all my accounts balances are zero? SHOULD I create a temporary account Post a negative credit, debit the bank then delete that temporary account or what???


SUGGESTIONS:

What if the option to insert to all GL Account and bank account beginning balances was added to the all process to facilitate new companies with ZERO previous transactions???
Thousands apologies to the SENIOR MEMBERS if I seem to not understand your procedures!!!

Re: Initial/Opening/Beginning balances

If you wish to proceed the way you want then FA is not for you.

If you wish to accomodate your request within FA, then make sure you have an account from which monies come out and go into.

When you start a fresh company in FA with no opening balances, then where did the Bank's Opening balance come from and whom should it be repaid to when the said bank account is closed?

Make a list of all opening balances you wish to transfer into FA and make a journal entry for all of them with the balance appropriated to the cash account. Make sure that the cash account balance is in debit as it should be returned to the shareholders and other stakeholders should the company close. Otherwise make a cash receipt entry from someone who has loaned you the amount to balance your books.

Please learn Double Entry Book Accounting or take professional Accountant's advice before attempting FA - there are some good tutorial links in the Wiki too.