Unless your business started the day you opened SeroBooks, it already had money in the bank, customers who owed it, bills to pay, stock, equipment and equity. Opening Balances is where you type those figures in, account by account, as at the day you start keeping your books in SeroBooks. That day is the cutover date.
Everything you type becomes lines of one journal entry. The screen shows the running difference between debits and credits as you type, and anything left over when you post goes to Opening Balance Equity, where your accountant can see it and clear it.
Use this screen if you are coming from another accounting program, a spreadsheet or paper records. If you are coming from QuickBooks Desktop, read Import from QuickBooks first.
Open Opening Balances
Choose Company ▸ Enter Opening Balances.
Before you start
- Get a trial balance from your old system (or from your accountant) as at the day before your cutover date. It lists each account with a debit or credit balance.
- Make sure every account on that trial balance exists in the Chart of Accounts. Add any that are missing first; see Add, edit, merge or make an account inactive. The grid only lists accounts that already exist.
- Check the closing date. An opening balance cannot be dated on or before it. See Set Closing Date and Year-End.
Enter and post your opening balances
- Set the Cutover date at the top right: the day this business started in SeroBooks. You can type the date or pick it. It cannot be later than today.
- For each account on your trial balance, find its row and type the amount in Debit or Credit. The box for the side the account normally sits on is shaded, so an asset or expense normally goes in Debit, and a liability, equity or income account in Credit.
- Use Find an account to jump to an account by name or code.
- Watch the totals card: Debits, Credits, and either Balanced or To Opening Balance Equity with the difference.
- Click Post opening balance.
- SeroBooks checks the entry. If there is a problem it says so in a red message and posts nothing (see the messages below).
- If everything is in order, the window Post the opening balance as at your date opens. Read it, then click Post it, or Not yet to go back and keep working.
When the entry is posted, a green message confirms it, for example: "Opening balance posted as OPEN/2026/0001 — 24 lines, 185,420.00 each side, with 312.50 to Opening Balance Equity." The screen then shows the posted figures and can no longer be edited.
The screen
Across the top
| Item | What it is |
|---|---|
| Opening Balances and As at | The title and the cutover date the balances are as at. |
| The note | "One journal, every account, and the difference shown as you type." |
| Cutover date | The date of the opening entry. When you first open the screen it is 1 January of this year. Once an opening balance has been posted, it shows the date it was posted as at. |
| Refresh | Reads the grid again from the books. |
The totals card
| Item | What it means |
|---|---|
| Debits | The total of every Debit box with an amount in it. |
| Credits | The total of every Credit box with an amount in it. |
| Balanced / To Opening Balance Equity | Balanced (in green) when debits equal credits. Otherwise To Opening Balance Equity (in amber) and the difference, which is what will be posted to Opening Balance Equity to make the entry balance. |
| Find an account | Narrows the rows to accounts whose name or code matches what you type. Amounts you typed in hidden rows are kept and still counted. |
| Post opening balance | Checks and posts the entry. Reads Already posted, greyed out, once an opening balance exists. |
The rows
Every account in the chart is listed: assets first, then liabilities, equity, income and expenses, each in code order.
| Column | What to enter / what it means |
|---|---|
| Code | The account's code, if it has one. |
| Name and sub-type | The account's name, with its sub-type underneath in small print. |
| Debit | A debit balance for this account on the cutover date. |
| Credit | A credit balance for this account on the cutover date. |
Leave both boxes empty for an account with no balance. Put an amount in only one of the two boxes on a row.
At the bottom, a reminder explains that a trial balance typed from another system rarely balances on the first attempt, and that the rest goes to Opening Balance Equity rather than being hidden in a real account.
The confirmation window
Before anything is written, Post the opening balance as at your date shows:
- how many accounts the entry has and the total on each side, for example "24 account(s), $185,108.00 each side, as one journal entry";
- if debits and credits differ, an amber box: the amount that does not balance, and that it goes to Opening Balance Equity as a debit or a credit. The box explains that this is expected rather than wrong: an accountant looks for this account on day one and clears it deliberately;
- if they are equal, "It balances exactly — no suspense line is needed.";
- a reminder that this can only be done once, and that correcting it afterwards means reversing the whole entry.
What posts to the books
One journal entry, dated the cutover date, with the reference OPEN/ followed by the year and a number (for example OPEN/2026/0001) and the memo "Opening balance as at" the date:
- one line for each account you gave an amount, on the side you typed it;
- if the totals differ, one more line to Opening Balance Equity for the difference: a credit when your debits are larger, a debit when your credits are larger.
If the company has no Opening Balance Equity account, SeroBooks creates one (type Equity) when it first needs it.
The lines are marked as opening balances, so the Statement of Cash Flows does not count them as cash movement for the period. They do show on the Balance Sheet, the Trial Balance and each account's ledger from the cutover date on.
Messages you may see
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Type at least one balance in." | Every box is empty. Type at least one amount. |
| "Line 3 ("Bank") has both a debit and a credit. That is two lines, not one." | Clear one of the two boxes on that account. If you really need both, type the net amount on one side. Line numbers count only the rows you have filled in. |
| "Line 3 names an account that does not belong to this business." | The account has been removed, for example merged into another. Press Refresh and type that amount again on the right account. |
| "This opening balance is dated …, which falls in a period closed on …" | The cutover date is on or before the closing date. Choose a later cutover date, or ask an administrator to move the closing date. |
| "An opening balance was already posted for this business on … (OPEN/…). Posting a second would double every opening figure — reverse the first one if it was wrong." | See "Correct an opening balance" below. |
After posting
The screen shows a green banner: "Posted as OPEN/2026/0001 on" the date, "The figures below are what went in. Posting again would double every one of them — correct it by reversing that entry from the Journal instead." The amounts stay on screen for reference and the boxes are locked.
Next steps:
- Run the Trial Balance as at the cutover date and compare it with the trial balance from your old system.
- Look at Opening Balance Equity on the Balance Sheet. Once you know what the difference is, clear it with a journal entry, usually to retained earnings or owner's equity. Your accountant will tell you where it belongs.
Correct an opening balance
An opening balance can be posted only once. To change it:
- Choose Reports ▸ Accountant & Taxes ▸ Journal and open the entry whose reference starts with OPEN/.
- Click Reverse. In Reverse this entry, set the Reversal date, normally the same cutover date, and click Reverse it. SeroBooks writes a contra entry; the original stays in the books beside it.
- Go back to Company ▸ Enter Opening Balances and press Refresh. The grid is open again.
- Type the corrected figures and post.
For a small correction, such as one account out by a few dollars, you can instead post a general journal entry between that account and Opening Balance Equity.
Opening balance on a single new account
The New account form on the Chart of Accounts has its own Opening balance section. It posts a separate two-line entry between the new account and Opening Balance Equity, and does not use this screen. It suits one account added later, such as a new loan. For a whole trial balance, use this screen so everything is one entry. See Add, edit, merge or make an account inactive.
Permissions
Posting needs Post Opening Balance in the user's role. Without it, an Approval Required window asks for someone who has it to sign in and approve. See Roles and permissions explained.
Tips
- Choose a cutover date at the start of a month, quarter or year: the first day you will record in SeroBooks. Your balances are the closing figures from the day before.
- Starting part-way through your financial year? Also type the year-to-date income and expense totals, so the Profit & Loss for the year is complete. Otherwise, type only the balance sheet accounts and put last year's profit into retained earnings.
- Type bank balances as they stood in your books, not on the bank statement. Cheques written but not yet cashed belong in the bank figure you enter.
- Keep the trial balance you typed from. It is your proof of where the opening figures came from.
Common problems
An account I need is not in the grid. It does not exist yet. Add it on the Chart of Accounts, then press Refresh here. What you already typed is kept.
The difference is large. A figure is usually in the wrong box or missing. Check each account's side against your old trial balance: assets and expenses are normally debits; liabilities, equity and income are normally credits. You can still post with a difference; it goes to Opening Balance Equity for you to clear later.
The balance sheet was doubled. An opening balance was entered twice, for example once here and again as opening balances on new accounts or with a journal entry. Reverse the duplicate entry from the Journal.