> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.hitaji360.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Opening Balances

> When you start using Hitaji 360 part-way through your business's life, you need to tell the system where your finances stand on day one — how much cash…

When you start using Hitaji 360 part-way through your business's life, you need to tell the system where your finances stand on day one — how much cash and bank you hold, what customers still owe you, and what you still owe suppliers. That is what **Opening Balances** are for.

This page explains how to enter a balanced cutover batch and post it into your books.

**You'll find this at:** `/accounting/opening-balances`

> 📷 *Screenshot: The Opening Balances page with the Accounts, Customer Invoices, and Vendor Bills sections — to be added.*

***

## When to use this

Use Opening Balances **once**, at the moment you go live, if you are migrating from another system or from spreadsheets. You capture, as of a chosen **cut-over date**:

* the **balances of your real accounts** — cash, bank, loans, accruals, etc.;
* each **outstanding customer invoice** (money owed *to* you); and
* each **unpaid vendor bill** (money *you* owe).

After go-live you should **not** keep adding opening-balance batches — record ongoing activity through normal invoices, bills, payments, and journals.

> If you only need to seed one account's starting figure, the simpler **Set opening balance** shortcut on the Chart of Accounts page is enough. See [Chart of Accounts](/accounting/user/getting-started/chart-of-accounts#setting-a-one-click-opening-balance). Use the full batch here when you have receivables/payables or several accounts to load together.

**Prerequisites:** initialise your chart of accounts first (see [Chart of Accounts](/accounting/user/getting-started/chart-of-accounts)), and confirm the correct business is active in the business switcher.

***

## How a batch is structured

An opening-balance **batch** has a name, an **as-of date**, and a set of **lines**. There are three kinds of line:

| Line type            | What it captures                                                                        | Which side carries the amount  |
| -------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------ |
| **Account**          | A starting balance for a general-ledger account (cash, bank, a liability reclass, etc.) | Debit *or* credit              |
| **Customer invoice** | A single unpaid invoice a customer owes you                                             | Debit (to Accounts Receivable) |
| **Vendor bill**      | A single unpaid bill you owe a supplier                                                 | Credit (to Accounts Payable)   |

Each line is either a debit **or** a credit — never both, and never zero. Subledger lines (customer invoices, vendor bills) must name a **contact**, and that contact's type must match (a customer for an invoice, a vendor for a bill).

### The balancing rule

Like every accounting entry, the batch must balance. You don't have to make the **Account** lines net to zero on their own, though — when you post, Hitaji 360 calculates the difference across your account lines and books the offset automatically against your **Owner's Equity / opening-equity** account. The subledger lines (invoices and bills) each carry their own equity offset as they are created.

The page shows you a live **validation summary** — total debit, total credit, the net difference, and whether the batch **isBalanced** (the two sides are within one cent). It also lists any **errors** (which block posting) and **warnings** (which don't), so you can fix problems before committing anything.

***

## Entering a batch step by step

1. **Open** `/accounting/opening-balances` and give the batch a **name** and an **as-of date** (your cut-over date).

2. **Add account lines** for each GL account's starting balance — choose the account, then enter the figure in the debit or credit column. Income and expense accounts and group accounts cannot take opening balances.

3. **Add customer-invoice lines** for each receivable still open: pick the customer, optionally a document number and dates, and the amount.

4. **Add vendor-bill lines** for each payable still open: pick the vendor, optionally a document number and dates, and the amount.

5. **Validate.** The page checks the batch and shows the totals, the net difference, and any errors/warnings. Fix anything flagged as an error.

6. **Freeze.** Once valid, freeze the batch. Freezing locks it for posting (a draft batch is validated automatically as part of freezing).

7. **Post.** Posting a frozen batch writes everything into your books (see "Behind the scenes" below). A posted batch cannot be re-validated, frozen, or edited.

The status moves through **Draft → Validated → Frozen → Posted**.

### Importing instead of typing

If you have a lot of lines, you can paste **CSV** instead of entering rows by hand. The page provides a downloadable template with three sections:

* **Accounts** — `accountCode, description, debit, credit`
* **Customer invoices** — `contactId, documentNumber, documentDate, dueDate, description, amount`
* **Vendor bills** — `contactId, documentNumber, documentDate, dueDate, description, amount`

The import parses your CSV into a validated **draft preview** so you can review and correct it before freezing and posting. (Account lines are matched to your chart by **account code**, so the codes in your CSV must already exist.)

***

## Behind the scenes — the postings

When you **post** a batch, Hitaji 360 records real double-entry transactions:

* **Account lines** become a single journal entry. Each account is debited or credited exactly as you entered it, and the system adds one balancing line to **Owner's Equity** for the net difference. (For example, if you load Cash 15,000 Dr and Bank 85,000 Dr with nothing else, the entry debits Cash and Bank for 100,000 total and credits Owner's Equity 100,000.)

* **Each customer-invoice line** creates a real **Sent invoice** for that customer and posts: **debit Accounts Receivable, credit Owner's Equity** for the amount. The customer now shows the correct outstanding balance, and the invoice behaves like any other going forward.

* **Each vendor-bill line** creates a real **Approved bill** for that vendor and posts: **debit Owner's Equity, credit Accounts Payable**. The vendor now shows the correct outstanding balance.

In every case the contra (offset) account is your **opening-equity** account, which is the standard, correct way to bring historical balances onto a fresh ledger. Each created invoice and bill is linked back to its batch line, and the whole batch is recorded in the accounting audit trail.

***

## Approvals

Opening balances are treated as an **administrative** operation. When a frozen batch is submitted, it is auto-approved and posted directly — there is no separate multi-step approval queue for opening balances in the current build. (The batch still records who created, validated, froze, and posted it.)

***

## Related

* [Chart of Accounts](/accounting/user/getting-started/chart-of-accounts)
* [Accounting Overview](/accounting/user/getting-started/overview)
* [Number Series](/accounting/user/getting-started/number-series)
* [Accessing Accounting](/accounting/user/getting-started/accessing-accounting)