Opening Balances | Income/Expense accounting

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Opening balances are the values your accounting starts with when you begin a new year or create a new file.
They represent your financial situation at the beginning of the year or your accounting period. 

  • What you own → cash in hand and bank, assets, receivables.
  • What you owe → debts, loans, taxes to be paid.
  • Net worth → the difference between what you own and what you owe.

Opening balances the first time you create a file

The first time you use Banana Accounting or create a new file:

  • Manually enter the balances in the Accounts table, Opening column.
  • Active accounts (positive) → enter them normally.
  • Passive accounts (debts) → enter them with a minus sign (-) before the amount.

From the second time on, it's no longer necessary: when you use Actions > Create New Year, the program automatically carries over the balances.

opening balances Income and Expense Accounting

Start with Banana Accounting during the year

If you start with Banana mid-year, you can choose one of the two methods:

  1. Start from the beginning of the year
  • In the Accounts table, Opening column, enter the initial balances you had at the beginning of the year.
  • In the Transactions table, enter all the transactions of the year (previously done with other programs), so you will have a complete file. To import data, you can use copy and paste or see the information on the page Retrieving  data from other programs.

 2. Start from the current date

  • Enter the opening balances in the Accounts table (Opening column).
  • Enter Income (positive) and Expenses (negative) balances in the Categories table.
  • Enter only the new transactions in the Transactions table.

Previous year balances

If you start a new accounting file based on an existing one and want your reports to also show the previous year’s values:

  • Go to the Previous view of the Accounts table.
  • Enter last year's closing balances in the Previous Year column.

Note:

  • Positive asset accounts → enter normally.
  • Negative asset accounts → use a minus sign.
  • Income categories → enter as positive.
  • Expense categories → enter as negative.

previous year balances, Previous column

Create a new year

To move to the next year:

  • Go to the Actions menu > Create New Year.
  • Save the new file with a clear name (e.g. Accounting 2026).

The program will automatically carry over the opening balances to the new file.
For more details, see the page Create New Year.

Print opening balances

You can print the opening balances in two ways:

  • Print/Preview → print the Accounts table selecting only the rows in the Opening column.
  • Accounting reports → configure the report to display the Opening column.

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