Enter opening balances

When you switch to HQ mid-stream, enter the balances your books started with:

1. Go to Ledger › Accounting › Opening Balances.
2. Set Balances as of: the last day your old books cover. Your HQ books begin the next day, and that next day is your conversion date.
3. Fill each account's balance under Assets, Liabilities, Equity, and (mid-year) Revenue and Expenses. The footer shows Debits, Credits, and the Difference.
4. Click Save opening balances.

HQ posts one balanced journal entry on the as-of date. If your entries don't fully balance, the remainder is booked to an equity account: at a year-end date that's retained earnings; mid-year it flags a likely typo.

Money that moved before your conversion date is already inside these balances. That is why HQ refuses to record a GST/HST or QST payment or refund dated before it, from the GST/HST tab or from a bank line: the refusal names the date and sends you here, because a wrong figure is fixed in the opening balances, not by recording the money a second time.

A receipt counts by the day it was paid, because that is the day its expense is recorded. One paid before the conversion date is inside the opening balances, whatever date it carries.

A receipt dated before your conversion date but paid after it may be a bill your opening balances already owe. When your opening balances carry Accounts Payable, approving such a receipt asks Was this already owed on your start date? before anything is recorded, naming the supplier, both dates and the amount. The answers:

• It's a new expense. HQ records the expense and its sales tax on the day it was paid, and any card charge entered on it, as it always has.
• It was still owed on the day your balances are as of. The receipt becomes that bill: it is marked still owed at your start date, and its payment comes off your opening Accounts Payable. No expense or sales tax is recorded again.
• It paid my bill from the supplier, when HQ finds a bill from them dated before your conversion date that the payment covers. That bill is marked still owed, its payment is matched to it, and the receipt is filed with it as proof.
• It's the receipt for the payment already on a bill, when that bill's payment is already recorded. The receipt is filed with it and nothing new is recorded.

Cancel leaves the receipt in review. The "owed" answers are refused, with the reason, for a receipt in another currency, one paid personally or from a prepaid balance, one whose expense sits in a locked period or a filed sales tax return, and one bigger than the part of your opening Accounts Payable no other bill explains yet. A receipt you approved before HQ asked shows the same question on its preview, and a Books Health card lists them. Undo still owed on the bill a receipt became turns it back into the receipt, in review. Only Accounts Payable is checked this way: a purchase your opening balances carry in another liability account, such as accrued liabilities, is still yours to answer, so record it as a new expense only if it is not in those balances.

HQ also refuses an as-of date that would split a store payout from its sales-tax correction. If a payout falls inside the opening balances but its correction is dated after the as-of date, the correction would stay in the books and count that payout's sales and tax a second time. The refusal names the payout and the correction's date: use balances as of that date or later, and ask your accountant for a trial balance as of that date if you need one.

Re-saving replaces your existing opening entry, not adds to it. If the as-of date is inside a locked period, remove the lock first.

Moving the as-of date later takes bills, bank lines and store payouts dated up to that day out of your books, because the new balances hold them. Other entries are different: HQ never removes a manual journal entry, a year-end adjustment or close, a GST/HST or QST remittance, an owner draw, or an invoice you raised. It stays in your books and counts on top of your opening balances. If your trial balance already includes it, it counts twice.

A paid invoice is the exception: HQ refuses the date. If an invoice has a payment, a credit or a released holdback recorded on or before your as-of date, that money would leave your books while the invoice stayed, and your receivables would stop adding up. HQ names each invoice by client, number, date and amount, says what is in the way on each one, and gives you a date that works. There is nothing to confirm. A released holdback refuses the date even when the invoice is unpaid, and a release can't be undone, so the way forward is the earlier date HQ gives you. An invoice you brought across as still open when you moved to HQ doesn't count, because your opening balances already hold it, and neither does a payment dated after your as-of date.

So before anything is saved, whenever you click Save opening balances, on a first save or a re-save, at any date, HQ lists every entry like that dated on or before your as-of date, by its memo, date and amount. Replace and keep these entries (or Save and keep these entries, or Move and keep these entries) saves with them in place, so leave them out of your figures. A manual journal entry can also be changed or deleted: choose Cancel, change it in Ledger › Accounting › Journal, then save again. If an entry lands while the list is open, HQ saves nothing and shows the new list. A book with no such entries sees none of this.

Moving the as-of date earlier than your existing entry does more than replace it. Bills, bank lines and payouts dated between the two dates (and receipts paid between them) were inside your old opening balances; after the move they are after it, so HQ brings them back into your books. A store payout paid out after your old date can hold back sales made before it; the sales made after the new date come back too, and HQ re-works that payout at the new date. Before anything is saved, the screen tells you how many records that is, and Move and save confirms it. Your balances as of the earlier date should leave those records out. Some records cannot be brought back automatically: a payment or settlement recorded in that period, a bank line recorded as a refund, a credit, a transfer or a remittance, a cancelled bill, a third-party payroll payment, a customer deposit, a proposed refund on a direct sale, a receipt match that booked a difference between the receipt and its bank line, a posted stock count, a store payout holding back sales that cannot be re-worked (it carries a sales-tax correction, an earlier conversion split it, its cost of goods is posted, it is in a foreign currency, or the order details are not in HQ and it may have been in your books before; one that never was comes back and waits for its orders), a store payout that may have been in your books before but cannot be posted again (its payment provider does not show it as paid out, posting from that provider is paused, its payout record is gone, or an account it posts to is missing from your chart), a day of direct online sales whose chart is missing an account it posts to, or an entry dated in that period that belongs to a bill with no date or to an earlier bill (such as a card charge adjustment posted after a period lock). When the period holds one, the screen says what it found, and the opening date stays where it is. Some of these come back after all, because nothing they posted can be lost: a cancelled receipt with no card charge adjustment comes back with its expense and its cancellation (unless the cancellation was dated on a different day from the expense), anything you discarded comes back as it was, a stock count you never posted comes back with no entry, and a receipt matched to a bank line comes back with its receipt when the match booked no difference (the amounts agreed, or the receipt was attached to a line that was already booked). Clearing your opening balances first does not get around this: the next earlier date is checked the same way.

A bill you imported as paid from QuickBooks, dated between the two dates, is one of these too. HQ has its paid figure but no entry for the payment, so brought back as new activity it would be owed again in full. HQ names each bill by supplier, date and amount and gives you the earliest date that keeps them inside your opening balances.

A bill payment matched to a bank line in that period is one of these, and the way through is to take the match off first: on Ledger › Expenses, choose Unmatch on the bill, move the date, then match the bill to its bank line again. Unmatching takes the payment off the bill by the amount the payment settled, so the bill is paid once after you match it again. HQ refuses the unmatch, and changes nothing, for a bill marked as still owed on your start date (choose Undo still owed on it first), for a bill in another currency that something else also paid, and when what HQ recorded for the payment doesn't fit what the bill shows as paid. When the something else is a payment still in your books, a match made for your records only, or a supplier deposit, unmatch it or un-apply the deposit, then try again. When it is a second payment that is also part of your opening balances, or a supplier credit, it can't be taken off: the payment stays matched, and the opening date stays where it is. The same holds for any payment HQ refuses.

A few other settlements in that period can be undone the same way, and then the date moves: un-apply a supplier deposit from its bill (Undo on the deposit's application), Reverse payment on a dividend, Reverse repayment on a person's statement, Undo match on a recurring charge, or unmatch a reimbursement of someone who paid a bill. Each takes the settlement off its document, and HQ no longer counts it against the move. Un-applying a deposit is refused, and changes nothing, for a bill marked as still owed on your start date: choose Undo still owed on the bill first.

A store payout paid out after your old as-of date can carry sales from on or before it. Setting that date divided the payout: its earlier months went into your opening balances and the rest stayed in your books. Moving the date earlier puts that payout back together, then divides it again at the new date if it still carries sales from on or before it. That works at a month end, and it works too when a later date has since moved the whole payout into your opening balances.

A store payout coming back this way is refused, and the opening date stays where it is, when HQ cannot rebuild it, cannot post it again, or cannot divide it at the new date:

• It can't be rebuilt. HQ has no record of how it stood before it was divided, or only a record made after an earlier division; it was corrected for sales tax since; or some of its sales were held out of it when it arrived, as being before the conversion date of that time, and the new date would bring them back (or HQ has no record of that date).
• It can't be posted again. It predates the rules that check a payout's sales tax before posting it, an account it posts to can't be found, nothing records which of its sales belong to which month, or what it moved out doesn't line up with the months it covers.
• It can't be divided at the new date. The new date falls in the middle of a month its sales run across (a payout's sales are recorded by month), a locked period would push one of its months to a later date, or a month that stays carries refunds whose tax was spread across several taxes, or whose tax as posted doesn't match the refunds.

The screen names each of these payouts before anything is saved. In rare cases a payout would post its months differently from how they were first posted (for example, its cost of goods has changed since); that is found only when you save, and the save is then refused with nothing changed.

To pull your opening balances from your old software's trial balance, use Import from accountant documents: it accepts a PDF, Excel (.xlsx), or CSV file, and a spreadsheet export is read directly. Note that QuickBooks Online exports a trial balance to Excel only, so the .xlsx file is the QuickBooks route; Xero exports both.

If your export doesn't say which accounts are assets, liabilities, equity, income, or expenses, which a QuickBooks Online trial balance doesn't, the review screen asks you to choose a type for each one before you can apply the chart. HQ never guesses: the wrong type would put a balance on the wrong statement. To skip that step, export with the types included (in Xero, tick Group by Account Type) or upload the PDF instead. When a spreadsheet is read, the review screen also states which Debit/Credit columns it used, the totals it read, and whether your amounts were read with comma decimals (1 234,56, the format Excel writes on a French-language machine), so you can check that's the right set of figures before anything is applied.

An opening balance you typed for a bank account on Banking › Accounts stays when you save here, even if your figures here are all zero: it has its own entry, and the account keeps showing it. Its row here says the opening is already in your books. If you enter a figure on that account anyway, HQ refuses the save and names the bank, its opening and its date, because your books would hold that cash twice.

• If the bank's opening is dated the same day as these balances, leave the account at 0.00 here.
• If it is dated earlier, it can't stand in for the balance on this day. Set the bank's opening balance on Banking › Accounts to 0.00 and post it, which takes its entry out (this works after your opening balances are saved too), then enter the account's balance here and save.

When you import a trial balance, a short bank accounts step appears between the chart review and this screen: rows that look like bank or card accounts are offered to become accounts in Banking, each showing the balance your trial balance carries so you can verify it. The step is optional and every row can be skipped. Nothing is booked there: each account's starting balance reaches Banking when you post your opening balances here.

Moving over from another package? Switch from another accounting system walks the whole path end to end.