Starting balances

KathyMcG

I am the bookkeeper for a school and have just started using Wave. How do I get starting balances into individual invoices.

JessG

@KathyMcG Hello! Within Wave, we typically use the term starting balance to indicate the amount of funds in an account at the beginning of a new fiscal period. Also you can also enter a starting balance as a way to keep your accounts accurate without needing to enter or import every single transaction from the entire history of that account.

To see how to add a starting balance within Wave, please refer to the following document linked below - it includes a step-by-step guide:
https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208622796-Starting-balances-What-they-are-and-how-to-enter-them-in-Wave

I see you mention adding into an invoice? Could you please go into more detail as to what this means for your specific case? Is this an outstanding balance from a previous invoice ? Let us know more about your workflow and what you're hoping to accomplish and we'd be happy to help.

KathyMcG

We are a low fees school for low income families and our fiscal year finishes 31 Dec each year. At the end of the year several students either still owe an amount or have paid in advance for January of the next year so I need to bring this forward onto each students statement.

NicoletteB

@KathyMcG thanks for giving that context as well as being a provider for such a needed service, especially during a time like this. We really appreciate hearing from businesses who are able to give back to their communities so keep it up!

Back to your question, we aren't able to add a starting balance onto invoices as the idea of a starting balance is specifically related to accounts that exist in your chart of accounts. However, our Customer Statements feature sounds like it would be perfect for your business. You would need to recreate any older invoices/add products to invoices to provide that original owed balance but this will keep a running total of any unpaid invoices vs. payments your clients have made in an easy to read format.

KathyMcG

Thank you for this. I did actually solve the problem by creating an invoice dated prior to 1/1/2020 and that shows up on the statement as a brought forward figure from the previous year.

Bowjest

Hi. I'm just trying out Wave since it's been updated and improved. I want to set a starting balance for my company, but find that the instructions for doing so don't match the options presented on my screen.

As instructed here:
https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208622796-Starting-balances-What-they-are-and-how-to-enter-them-in-Wave

The instructions say:

1) Go to your Transactions page.
2) Click Add Income.
3) In the Description column, enter "Starting balance".

I've clicked on Accounting > Transactions, but can only see the options that appear in the attached screenshot.

I hope someone can help.

Many thanks,
Bow

CallieP

Hi @Bowjest , thanks for reaching out! In this case, it just indicates that there are no transactions yet, so this 'brand new' transactions screen is what appears instead. Sorry for any confusion on this! What you can do is click 'Add manual transactions', add your first transaction, and then the next time you go there, you'll see the transaction page interface being referenced.