Move your books to Sales Scribe
If your business has been trading before it came to Sales Scribe, your books do not start at zero. The opening position is how you bring them across: the balance on every account, and every invoice and bill still waiting to be paid, as they stood on one date. You state it once, check it balances, and post it in one go. From then on Sales Scribe's ledger carries on from exactly where your old system left off.
A brand-new business with no history does not need this — its books really do start at zero.
Before you begin
- Your last year end. The opening position is stated as at the end of an accounting year. If your organisation has no financial year end recorded yet, the first step asks for it.
- Your closing balance sheet (trial balance) at that date. Your accountant will have produced one with your last accounts; it holds exactly the figures this asks for.
- Your aged debtors and aged creditors at that date — the list of customer invoices and supplier bills that were still unpaid.
- Permission to manage the opening position. If you cannot see Opening Position in the menu, ask your organisation's owner.
Step 1 — the date
- Go to Banking → Opening Position.
- If you have no year end yet, the page asks for it first. A registered company can Search the register and confirm the date Companies House holds (Yes, that is my year end); anyone can instead enter My last accounting year ended and select Record it. Your first financial period here begins the day after.
- The Stated as at date is filled in for you: the day before your first financial period begins. Add a note if it helps, and select Start the opening position.
Choosing the date. A year end is the best date to pick, because your accountant has already produced the closing balance sheet for it. Converting part-way through a year means Sales Scribe holds only part of that year, so it cannot show a full prior-year comparison. And if your year end is not also the end of a VAT period, HMRC still takes one return for the whole period that straddles the date: say so in step 2 (A VAT period in progress, below), and your first return here covers it.
Reports for dates before your opening position
As soon as you start the opening position — before you have entered a single figure — reports asked about a date before it say "Before your opening balances" instead of showing figures: the balance sheet, profit and loss, trial balance, general ledger, cash flow, VAT summary, aged receivables and payables, the control-account check, and the other reports that cover a date or a period, including a director's loan account statement. A customer statement PDF for a period before it is refused, with a message saying why, rather than telling your customer they owed nothing.
This is deliberate. Your history before that date lives in your old system, not here, so a report for an earlier date has nothing true to say. Showing zeros instead would be worse than showing nothing: a balance sheet of zeros still balances, and "nobody owes you anything" looks like good news. So the report tells you plainly that it cannot answer.
It stays that way while the opening position is a draft, once it is posted, and while you reopen it to make changes. The date the notice gives is your opening position's date; if you change that date on a draft, the reports follow it.
A report whose range starts before your opening position (for example This calendar year in your first year) shows what your records hold, and says so in its headings:
- Reports that show an opening position open at your opening position instead of on the day before the range. That covers the trial balance's Opening column, the opening balance in the general ledger, account transactions and a person's loan-account statement, and the cash flow's opening cash. The heading says at 31 Mar 2026, when records begin, with your date. Movements then run from the day after, so the journal that set up your opening position is part of the opening rather than shown as the period's activity, and opening plus movement still equals closing.
- A customer statement does the same in your customer's words: its opening is the Balance brought forward at 31 Mar 2026. Beneath it are the invoices and credit notes that make it up, each with the customer's own number and date. See Send a customer statement.
- Reports that show only activity say records from 31 Mar 2026 only in their headings. That covers the profit and loss, revenue by customer, payments by customer and payments by supplier. Invoices and credit notes brought across in your opening position are not counted as revenue of any period, because that revenue was earned before your records begin. For the same reason they are left out of the invoiced and billed totals on a customer's or supplier's page.
Step 2 — balances
Go to 2. Balances and enter what each account held on the date.
- Enter every amount as a positive figure, and use the option beside it to say which way round it is — for a bank account, In funds or Overdrawn. A negative figure is refused rather than guessed at. The Dr or Cr beside each row shows where it will land.
- Accounts kept in another currency take two figures: what the account held in its own currency, and what it was worth in your functional currency on your closing balance sheet. The exchange rate is worked out from the two and shown back to you.
- Debtors and creditors are not entered here. They come from the outstanding documents in the next step, one at a time, so that every invoice appears on your aged listings.
- VAT for periods already ended goes on VAT control. Enter VAT owed for periods ending on or before your opening position's date — whether you owe HMRC or HMRC owes you — on VAT control, where it can be paid. Output VAT and Input VAT take a balance only for a VAT period still in progress (below); reverse charge VAT never does.
- Income and expense balances are taken to retained earnings. A trial balance exported at a year end often still shows the year's sales and costs, because the closing entries have not been made. Enter them as they are: each income and expense account is marked to retained earnings. When you post, they are not posted to those accounts. Their net, the profit or loss for the year, is taken to your retained earnings account instead. If your figures were exported after the year was closed, there are no such balances and nothing is taken. Income and expense balances take one figure, in your functional currency.
- The Difference card at the top shows how far the balances are from balancing, and says It balances when they do.
To save typing, you can Import a trial balance: a .csv or .xlsx file with an account code on each row and separate Debit and Credit columns. Every row is checked before any is kept. If Sales Scribe cannot tell which column is which, it shows you the columns and asks.
A VAT period in progress
This is only for a business that moves here part-way through a VAT period. HMRC takes one return for the whole period, so your first return here has to cover the part before the date too. Under VAT period in progress, give:
- the date the period began — on or before your opening position's date, and not before you registered for VAT;
- its box 6 and box 7 so far, in whole pounds, from your previous records.
Then enter the period's output VAT and input VAT so far on those two accounts. They are posted marked as VAT, so your first return counts them like any other VAT, and it shows box 6 and box 7 so far as figures from your previous records. Your first return starts on the date you gave — see VAT returns. The VAT Summary can't be produced for that one period, so check that return against your previous records for the part before your opening position's date, and against your ledger for the rest.
Clearing the date removes the output and input VAT balances and the two figures with it.
Step 3 — outstanding documents
Go to 3. Outstanding documents and add every sales invoice, customer credit note, supplier bill and supplier credit note that was still open on the date — one at a time, or with Import aged debtors or creditors (a .csv or .xlsx with one open document per row and a Type column saying whether each is a sales or purchase document).
For each document give Its number (the number it carried in your old system), when it was Dated and Due, the Customer or supplier, the Currency (and Rate for another currency), what is Still outstanding, and of which tax.
Enter what is still outstanding, not what the document was raised for. If an invoice for £1,200 had £200 paid on it, enter £1,000. Entering the original and a made-up payment would import a payment history that never happened. You can record the original figure in Originally raised for — it is what a customer's remittance will quote.
These become real documents when you post, so a payment that arrives later has something to settle against, and each one appears on your aged debtors or creditors.
Step 4 — review and post
Go to 4. Review and post. You see your opening trial balance — the same figures the ledger will hold.
- If it does not balance, the page says by how much, and the Post the opening position button stays unavailable. An opening position is posted whole or not at all: the difference is never parked in a suspense account.
- If you entered income or expense balances, the page lists them under Income and expense, taken to retained earnings, with the total: for example Profit for the year to 31 Mar 2026, taken to Retained Earnings: 7,000.00. It appears as its own line in the trial balance. Tick the box confirming that figure before you post. If you change a balance after reading the page, confirm the new figure: a confirmation of the old one is refused.
- When it balances, select Post the opening position. The balances, every outstanding document and the accounts they are stated against all post together.
Posting also locks your books up to the opening position's date, so nothing can be dated before the point your whole ledger is measured from. See Lock your books.
Changing it after posting
If you find a mistake, open 4. Review and post and select Reopen for changes. This reverses everything the opening position posted and returns it to draft in one step. Documents it created go back to draft too, keeping their numbers, so posting again restates them rather than creating them twice. Reports before the date keep saying "Before your opening balances" throughout.
Reopening is refused:
- if anything has been settled against one of its documents — a payment allocated, or a credit note applied. Undo that first (unallocate the payment, or unapply the credit note), then reopen.
- if the books have since been locked past the opening position's date by a later decision.
- if a VAT return that covers your VAT period in progress has been finalised. It includes the VAT you brought in for that period. Revert the return first, then reopen.
Troubleshooting
- The Post button is greyed out. The position does not balance yet; the page shows the difference and which side is short.
- A figure was refused as negative. Enter it as a positive figure and choose which way round it is.
- There is nowhere to enter debtors or creditors as a balance. That is deliberate — enter the outstanding documents in step 3 instead.
- A report shows "Before your opening balances". The date you asked about is before your opening position. See Reports for dates before your opening position.