Setting up opening fund balances

This article covers how to set up your opening fund balances within ExpensePlus.

Before setting up your opening fund balances, you will need to add all of your funds within the Fund Settings screen.

If you are not yet ready to set up your opening balances, you can come back to this later.

You can still use nearly all the features of ExpensePlus before this is done.

If you are still awaiting your exact figures, you can use provisional figures and update these at a later date.

Where do I set up opening fund balances?

When you are ready to set up opening fund balances, within the Fund Settings screen, click the 'Opening Balances' button.

This will take you to the Opening Balances Setup screen, which will guide you through the setup process.

1. Checking your opening accounting basis

Your accounting basis was set when you first logged in to ExpensePlus.

You should check that it matches the accounting basis of your prior year accounts.

If it is incorrect, you can edit it.

If your accounting basis is not stated, click the 'Set Accounting Basis' button at the top of the Opening Balances Setup screen:

This will take you to the Organisation Settings screen, where you can check (or change) your accounting basis for ExpensePlus. Click on the edit button to the right, check the selected accounting basis is correct and then click 'Submit' in the pop-up that appears.

Find out more here: Choosing your Accounting Basis when setting up ExpensePlus

2a. Setting cash balances (receipts & payments accounts)

If you selected your accounting basis as 'Receipts & Payments', you will then need to 'Set Cash Assets' for each of your funds:

Enter the information from your prior year's accounts.

Then go back to the Opening Balances Setup screen. Under the section titled 'Other Assets & Liabilities', click the 'edit' button to enter other assets and liabilities that are stated on your accounts for your prior year.

You do not need to enter these straight away. But you will need to enter this information in order to create your year-end accounts using the ExpensePlus module.

2b. Setting balance sheet information (accruals-based accounts)

If you selected your accounting basis as 'Accruals', you will then need to 'Set Balance Sheet Information':

Once done, the totals in the top table should match the totals in the bottom table for each fund type.

What has been entered should match your prior year accounts.

When you click 'Save Progress' you will be returned to the Opening Balance Setup Screen.

3. Setting allocation breakdown (accruals-based accounts only)

Once you have completed the setup of your Opening Balance Sheet Information, you will need to allocate the assets and liabilities on your balance sheet to your funds.

4. Locking opening balances

Once you have entered your opening balances and completed the steps above, you can lock your opening balances on the Opening Balances screen.

Locking your opening balances prevents accidental changes to your reports and year end accounts.

You also need to lock your opening balances to lock a closed financial year.

Unlocking your opening balances

If you need to make changes to your opening balances later on, you can unlock your opening balances again.

You can't unlock your opening balances if you have locked one or more financial years. You will first need to unlock all your financial years on the Organisation Settings Screen.

Then you can unlock your opening balances on the Opening Balances screen, make the changes you need and lock your opening balances again.

Cash mismatch

If the total opening balances of all your bank and petty cash accounts do not match the total cash that was stated on your balance sheet, this additional section will appear at the bottom of the Opening Balance Setup screen.

See here for more information about opening cash mismatches.