Tutorial: Opening Balance

If your business already existed before you started using ASPLUS, you need to tell the system your existing balances — for example "we already have RM50,000 in the bank and customers owe us RM12,000". That's the Opening Balance.

Where: Accounting → Opening Balance.

Skip this entirely if you're starting a brand-new business with no prior balances.

Before you start

Have your figures ready as at your migration date:

• Cash & bank balances
• Fixed assets, stock value, other assets
• Loans and other liabilities
• Owner's capital / equity
• Total outstanding customer invoices (what customers still owe you)
• Total outstanding supplier bills (what you still owe suppliers)

The opening balance date is set to the last day of your financial-year-end month, so make sure your financial year is correct first.

Step 1 — Enter account balances

1. Open Accounting → Opening Balance.
2. For each Balance Sheet account (assets, liabilities, equity), enter its Debit or Credit opening amount.
3. Keep going until total Debit = total Credit. The wizard won't let you finish until they match.

Assets normally carry a Debit opening balance; liabilities and equity a Credit balance.

Step 2 — Outstanding customer invoices (receivables)

If your Trade Receivables has an opening balance (customers owe you), the wizard routes you to record those as opening invoices — one per outstanding customer invoice — so ASPLUS knows exactly who owes what. These appear as unpaid invoices you can later match payments against.

Step 3 — Outstanding supplier bills (payables)

If your Trade Payables has an opening balance (you owe suppliers), the wizard routes you to record those as opening bills — one per outstanding supplier bill — so your payables are accurate.

Step 4 — Complete the wizard

Once balances match and any receivable/payable sub-steps are done, complete the wizard. Only then do the opening balances become active.

Important: opening balances stay in draft and are excluded from all reports until the wizard is fully completed. If your Balance Sheet looks empty after entering balances, you probably haven't completed the wizard yet.

Editing opening balances later

You can re-open the wizard to update figures. Editing recalculates your historical data in the background. Opening balance entries can only be changed through this wizard — not through the Journal Entries screen.

Opening balances are managed only here (each company keeps its own), never as ordinary journal entries.

Opening Balance FAQ