When you bring an existing business onto BusinessSensor, each customer, vendor and account starts with the balance it already had. That figure is the opening balance, and the single thing that goes wrong most often is its sign.
A wrong sign does not look like an error. It saves without complaint, and only shows up weeks later as a customer who appears to be in credit, or a supplier the books say owes you money. Each form now carries a note telling you which direction a positive number means on that screen.
Before you start
- Decide your As Of date — the day the balance was true. It defaults to today; change it if you are entering balances as at a month-end or year-end.
- Have your existing figures to hand: the customer statement, the supplier statement, or the trial balance.
- It is easiest to enter the opening balance when you create the record, but you can add or correct it later on an existing customer or vendor. It locks once it has been paid or its period is closed — see Common problems.
Which way round
Customers — Chart: money owed to you.
| Situation | What to enter |
|---|---|
| The customer owes you 50,000 | 50000 |
| You owe the customer 50,000 (they overpaid) | -50000 |
Vendors / suppliers — the mirror image of customers.
| Situation | What to enter |
|---|---|
| You owe the supplier 50,000 | 50000 |
| The supplier owes you 50,000 | -50000 |
Note the flip. On a customer, positive means they owe you; on a vendor, positive means you owe them. Both read as "the normal direction for this relationship", which is why the note appears on each form.
Accounts (Chart of Accounts) — depends on the account type.
| Account type | Positive means | Negative means |
|---|---|---|
| Bank, Cash, Current Asset, Fixed Asset | What the account holds | The account is overdrawn |
| Equity | What the account is worth to the owners | The other way round |
Income and expense accounts have no opening balance — the field does not appear for them, because their balances build up from transactions within a fiscal year.
Steps
- Open Customers, Vendors or Chart of Accounts and click New.
- Fill in the name and the other details as usual.
- In Balances, type the Opening Balance, using the note under the field to check the sign.
- Set As Of to the date the balance was true.
- Click Save.
To add or correct the balance on a customer or vendor you created earlier, open the record, change Opening Balance, and click Save. The opening-balance invoice (customer) or bill (vendor) is created or updated to match, and the ledger follows.
Tips
- Then run the go-live check. Customer opening balances are recorded as income and supplier opening balances as an expense, which distorts your first period's profit. Setup → Go-live Check shows the amounts and moves them to Opening Balance Equity in one click. What your customers and suppliers owe does not change.
- Enter zero, or leave it blank, for a brand-new customer or supplier. An opening balance is only for someone you already traded with.
- Balances post to the ledger through Opening Balance Equity, so your books stay in balance while you are still loading records. Once everything is in, that account should net to what you expect for the business's starting position.
- If you are loading many records, keep to one As Of date across the whole batch. Mixed dates make the first month's reports hard to reconcile.
Common problems
"The Opening Balance field is greyed out." A yellow note under the field says why. On a customer or vendor it locks for one of two reasons:
- It has been paid. A receipt (customer) or a payment (vendor) has been recorded against the opening-balance invoice or bill, even partly. Changing the figure now would leave that payment pointing at the wrong amount. Record the difference instead — an invoice or customer journal for a customer, an expenditure or vendor journal for a vendor.
- Its period is closed. The balance is dated on the record's registration date, and that date falls in a fiscal period that has been closed or locked. Ask an administrator to reopen the period, or record the difference with a journal in an open period.
On a Chart of Accounts entry the field locks once transactions exist against the account; correct the difference with a journal entry.
"I added an opening balance to an existing vendor or customer and it is not on the ledger." Records edited before October 2026 could save the figure without posting it when the balance was added after the record was created. Change the opening balance to 0, save, then enter the correct figure and save again; the opening-balance bill or invoice is created and reaches the ledger.
"I entered the balance the wrong way round." If the record is new and has no transactions yet, reopen it and correct the figure. If it is locked, raise a journal entry for twice the difference to move it to the correct side, or ask your accountant to adjust through Opening Balance Equity.
"I saved a positive balance and the account shows a negative one." That was a defect in accounts created before August 2026, where the opening journal posted on the wrong side. Re-save the account's opening balance and the entry re-syncs itself. Newly created accounts are not affected.
"My customer's balance does not match their statement." Check the As Of date. If it is later than some of the invoices you have loaded, those invoices are being counted on top of an opening balance that already included them.