Quickbooks 2021 Tutorial for Beginners- How to Enter Opening Balances When You Have Been in Business

I get this question all the time - what if we have been in business, how do I enter opening balances for accounts in Quickbooks? The standard way in Quickbooks is to simply create your accounts and enter the opening balances. This way distorts your balance sheet because it plugs the balance to Opening Balance Equity, which is a plug account.

The right way is to do a journal entry and adjust your balances - this video shows you how to enter your opening balances when you have been in business. Step-by-step I walk you through how to do it correctly.

[beasleysweets]

THIS is exactly what I needed. Very clear instructions and explanations. Thank you!!

[agnesk]

This video has saved me a lot of grief and aggravation. Thank you very much

[Lynnie]

This was the best explanation on how to enter opening balances for an established business I have seen...the only thing I would like to see is how to do it from a tax return if a balance sheet report is unavailable.
Thank you!

[wait-what-really.]

Brilliant - thanks for actually teaching this. I've been away for bookkeeping for some time and have been searching for the way I use to open existing balances and this is how I used to do it. I've looked at a lot on youtube and none of them seemed right until this. Subbed....I want to get back to the job I loved.

[conniekorb]

Thank you! Exactly the information I was looking for! Well done and expertly made video.

[dcarter]

Do you need to make an adjusting entry to clear out the revenue and increase the equity back to the original balance sheet

[essamuhammad]

Opening receivable balances are the income for previous accounting period,

[MarcyDiaz-tv]

Awesome explication. just what I needed.

[michellefLA]

Do I do the same to transfer my desktop data to QBO?

[DJNRCosmeceuticalsLLC]

what do i do if my beginning balance is wrong? can i start all over again? how do i determine the cutoff date for month end closing?

[CarolMelnik]

Thank you for this helpful video. I am assisting in setting up Quickbooks Desktop 2021 for a very small charitable organization (church) that has been in operation ("in business") for awhile. As far as the Liability & Equity Section of the Balance Sheet, I only needed to enter Retained Earnings. My understanding is that when the fiscal year has ended (December 31st), the net income showing on the Balance Sheet would automatically be added to the Retained Earnings on the first day of the the new fiscal year (January 1st). What I found was that the amount assigned to Retained Earnings as the opening balance remained the same on January 1st of the new fiscal year, and the net income of the previous year appeared as Unrestricted Net Assets on January 1st. And so it seems that I now have two different Retained Earnings accounts - one titled Retained Earnings that represents the Opening Balance, and one titled Unrestricted Net Assets that represents the Retained Earnings generated via Quickbooks. Is there anyway that I can make these two accounts one? I did not find an Equity Account "Unrestricted Net Assets" on my Chart of Accounts. Thank you for your help.

[traderspoint.growmore]

Hello sir,
Can you please tell me how to record opening balances of customer or supplier partially paid invoices
I just moved to quickbooks in the middle of my fiscal year.
And also what account’s opening balances should i put on.?

[glennvaughan]

im starting a new quickbooks file 1 month into the new year. is there a video on adding income and revenue balances?

Thanks

[DDeeS-jxmq]

If your company didn’t enter opening balances correctly at the beginning of the year can this be corrected at the end of the year before closing year out?

[navjotkaur-md]

What to do if you have payroll uncleared cheques ?

[JosieEvangelista]

we already finished inputting the current source docs. but we have not make the journal for the opening balance? how to remedy this. Tnx

[Tammy-zcgy]

Thank you! I'm at my deadline today and this video just saved me from making some crucial mistakes. Question: When you say enter your AR invoices exactly with the correct account/items, what about sales tax? I wouldn't think I should enter the sales tax as sales tax since most has already been paid and I wouldn't want it populating in my Sales Tax payable account. If that's correct how do I record the sales tax on the invoice so my total invoice amount is correct? As a misc cost?? Thanks in advance!!

[revelinescents]

Will making these type of journal entries help with getting the correct negative balances if someone stopped using QB mid-year in 2019 but restarted in 2022?

[essamuhammad]

While qbo shows these balances as income, for current accounting period, how to adjust it?

[anup]

How can I enter the opening balance for P&L accounts?