Starting balances: What they are, and how to enter them in Wave
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Starting balances: What they are, and how to enter them in Wave
A starting balance is the amount of funds in an account at the beginning of a new fiscal period.
When you're entering a bank or credit card account in Wave, you probably don't want to enter or impo...
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What should I do if my "All Accounts" amount on the Transactions page doesn't match what the actual balance of my accounts is? I've added the starting balances and it got close (to within 10c) but it's not exactly right.
Hey @Molly - you'd essentially be doing something similar. For customers though, head over to Accounting > Chart of Accounts, and generate a new liability account for your customer(s). Back in Accounting > Transactions, where you will be able to add transactions and assign them to a customer's account. For supplier, all you'd actually need to do is generate a bill under Purchases > Bills for the value you owe them. Back date it to when you want this 'starting balance' to be due for, and this will automatically assign the value to accounts payable. Conversely, if the supplier owes you a credit, draft a bill with a negative line item equal to the value of what you are owed.
@William007_ this will seem a little counterintuitive, but you'd want to record the income/expense into the Owner Equity account, and then categorize as 'Owner Investment/Drawings'. Title the transaction 'Retained Earnings' for your records, or add this as a note to the transaction!
I Created an account under the heading Chart of Accounts > Liabilities > Loan and Line of credit for the customer that I need a Starting Balance for (on his statement) but when I create a transaction for him it doesn't give me him as an option under " categorize expense" in Liabilities. What am I doing wrong?
Hi @Molly . You can't categorize to accounts made under the sub-category Loan and Line of Credit. I'd recommend recreating the account under the Credit Card sub-category in Liabilities which will allow you to assign transactions to it.
How would I add a starting balance for an Accumulated depreciation account?
How can I add a starting balance for an Accounts Payable account as well as an Accumulated depreciation. Both accounts do not show up in the list of accounts (while they are in the chart of accounts [system accounts]. The only way I found so far is to do this through the journal of transactions, but it is rather cumbersome to add all the depreciation expenses for example. And for the retained Earnings it is impossible. I could of course post a "fictive" transaction on a certain date to get the starting balance right, but it wouldn't look so clean.
Thank you!
I'm still confused if you can help with an example if possible. I bring to the new business 50k in equipment that I want to be paid back over time. How would I enter tools & equipment as a liability owing to me?
Hey @CelWave
You're correct in using journal transactions to create the starting balances in your accounts. But in regards to depreciation, this article outlines how you'd need to create two accounts in your chart of accounts.
https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208623506-How-do-I-handle-depreciation-and-amortization-
You'll need to create a long term asset account, and a depreciation account. Then let's say you bought a car, you would create a bill for this payment for the total amount of the car and set the account for that bill to be the long term asset account. Then you would want to head to your transactions page and create journal transactions debiting the depreciation account and crediting the long term asset account for the amount depreciated using your Schedule C depreciation document given to you by your accountant.
The article I've linked has some great visuals to help. Don't hesitate to reach out if you need further clarification.
Hey there @Studio208
I've got a screenshot of some instructions pulled from our Starting Balances Article.
It's likely you'd have to create a long term asset account for each of your pieces of equipment which you'd like to make payments to overtime. See my post above if you'd like to document the depreciation of these said accounts.
For example, you have a fridge for $5,000. You'd want to create a long term asset account for that fridge and create journal transactions crediting that asset account which you would have initially created a starting balance for by following the steps in the above article.
no cause I am trying to start a starting balance for this year but when I put it in it makes my account off balance. how do it fix this I put it in the way you told me but it throws my account off someone please help.
@justnewtothis Are you able to further explain what you mean by your accounts being thrown off? A starting balance would be entered prior to any other transactions being entered into Wave. A starting balance would only through of account balances if you are entering the starting balances after the transactions have been imported. Additionally, if you use a bank connection in Wave, then the starting balance would automatically be imported and can be adjusted if incorrect.
Hi, Im new to Wave. Having trouble entering a start balance. Have followed instructions about entering a new deposit with the transaction date being my start date. But when i go to reconsile it tells me the start date is the last day of my first month not the first day of the month which I put in. Can anybody help me?
Hey @timp
I think the issue you might be experiencing is with the reconciliation feature. Typically when you try to reconcile a month, you need to enter your end date, and your ending balance. Try entering the end date of that statement for that month and also the ending balance on your statement and see if you're able to properly reconcile the month. You won't be able to do this until the end of the reconciliation period.
Also check out this article on how to use the -->Account Reconciliation Tool<--
Thanks for the help. I have it sorted now
Hi, how to create an opening balance for previous year retained earnings? I have just moved into waveapps and need to transfer all my opening balance.
@padgeezer Welcome to Wave! A special welcome to the Wave Community also!
It looks like you've come to the right Help Centre article.
All you need to do is head to your Transactions page, select for the right account and then select 'Add Income' at the top right. Here, you can label the transaction as a 'Starting Balance' and categorize it as Owner's Equity, a reflection of what you already have in the account. Once you've entered your starting balances for all your accounts, you can upload your bank statements or import your transactions to fully transition into using Wave! If you have any further questions about the getting started process, as you know, the Help Center is a great resource and the Support team is always here if you need anything!
I notice that although the business bank account is connected and all transactions are pulled in from the business bank account as a cash only business, the starting balance transaction is one I created (from the bank balance as at 1 July 2018 - although Wave makes you start it with the ending date of the period before). I can't see a transaction which says "Starting balance for Account". When I try to reconcile the first month (ie 1 July - 31 July 2018), Wave gives me a starting balance of twice the starting balance of the bank account, yet I can't see two transactions stating 'Starting Balance'. What am I doing wrong - how can I fix this.
Hi @Chippies5169! Typically, when a starting balance is imported through a bank connection in Wave, the transaction would be able to be located on the "Transactions" page. Your post suggests that this is not the case. Are you able to take a look at your Account Transactions report for this account (filtering the date for as far back as your first transaction) and locate the starting balance transaction there? On the Account Transactions report, the transaction should be clickable, and should take you to the transaction on the "Transactions" page to make the edit.
Let us know if this works, and if it doesn't, then let us know here and we can see what we can do to dig in further with your help!
Hi@JordanD. I actually could locate the starting balance on the transactions page. Since uploading this post, I have since realised what was happening. I had two starting balances - one for June 30 and one for July 1 2018 (which I inputted when trying to get the reconciliation feature working because it asks for an 'ending balance date' - and I got confused with putting one in for June 2018 even though I was starting from 1 July 2018). I deleted the June 30 transaction so all is good now from that end - I just have to fix the other anomalies. Thanks.
Work fine - the balance sheet is fulle balanced
I need to know how can I input opening balance in Wave
How to set up Opening Balance. This is a most and Common questions
@Somen,
Under Accounting/Transactions/More use a journal entry to post the opening balances. Be sure to adjust the date to be the beginning date.
Hey @Somen
I've merged your question into this thread if you wanted to read our Starting Balances Article or read through the comments in this thread to get more insight into this action.
I'm trying to create a closing balance entry on an income account so the new year will start out with a zero balance. I am debiting the income account and crediting it to an equity account. The transaction saves fine, but when I run a transaction report, it is still showing a starting balance as last years closing balance amount. Why is the journal entry not updating the income account balance?
Hey @swanny
It appears that some of your Wave pages might not be communicating with each other, and this is why you are seeing discrepancies in the numbers between different pages.
I have gone ahead and run what we call a "reflow" on your account. This is a back end process that will ensure that your account is in a good state and that all the numbers presented to you are accurate.
If the reflow is triggered and the account appears to be in a bad state. The system will automatically work behind the scenes to get your account back to a good place.
Reach out if you're still having any issues with your numbers!
How do you reconcile the loan payment that goes through the bank account. I have entered the journal entry for the starting balance crediting liability and debiting asset it seems when i reconcile the payment coming out of the bank account it is not reducing the liability...what am i doing incorrectly. The payment from the bank account is an auto withdrawal.