Set your opening balances

What opening balances are

Worklog only sees money from the day you start logging. What the business already had and owed before that — money in the bank, stock on the shelf, a bakkie bought years ago, customers who still owed you, a supplier you still owed, a loan, a SARS balance — is your opening balances. It isn't income and it isn't a cost; it is where your books begin. Every opening figure lives on one screen, Opening Balances, under Financials, and all of them are for the same day.

Set them up

1. Open Opening Balances, under the "Financials" tools card (or the "Financials" group on desktop). Your start date is at the top. Under it are three tabs, as in the Asset Register: Overview (what the business was worth on day one, and anything still to set), What you had (steps 2–4) and Debts (steps 5–8). Every figure is one line with its button on the right: Set, then Change once it's set.
2. Step 1, the start date: the first day Worklog keeps your books. The start of a tax year (1 March) is the easiest, because your first return then starts clean. Every figure after this is what you had at the end of the day before — pick 1 March and you give what stood at the close of the last day of February.
3. Step 2, bank, cash and cards: tap Set on each account and type its closing balance on that day's statement. For a card, type what you owed as a normal number. An account you opened after the start date: tick that box and it starts from nothing. An account you've since deactivated is listed greyed with no button if it had a balance, or if its balance is for another day: a balance still counts in what the business had on day one. To change one, reactivate the account in Bank accounts, set it here, then deactivate it again.
4. Step 3, stock: what was on the shelf, at what you paid for it — item by item, or just the total. No stock? Leave it.
5. Step 4, equipment and vehicles: anything over R7 000 you bought before the start date and still use. Give what it cost excluding VAT, when you bought it, and what SARS has already allowed as wear and tear on it (last year's tax computation or your accountant has this; never claimed, put 0). Worklog carries on writing off what is left from your start date.
6. Step 5, customers who still owed you: one line per unpaid invoice from before the start date — who, your invoice number if you like, the date, and what was still owed with VAT included. If you're registered for VAT, Worklog works out the VAT inside it at the rate of the invoice's own date (14% before 1 April 2018, 15% since); if only part of it carried VAT, add it as two lines. Each becomes an invoice marked Owed when your books started, so it shows in your invoices, Age Analysis and statements.
7. Step 6, suppliers you still owed: the same for supplier invoices you hadn't paid yet. They show when you log a payment in Banking → + Add (and on WhatsApp) so you can pick the supplier invoice when you pay it — on every plan.
8. Step 7, loans: tap Set on the last line for each one — who it's with, which way it runs, and what was still owed (the outstanding capital, not the instalment). A staff member who still owed you an advance on your start date goes here too, as money owed to the business — and record the advance in Advances with its own date, before your start, so Pay Run can take it back. Money dated before your start is history: once each account's balance is set in step 2, it isn't counted in your accounts or your books again.
9. Step 8, SARS: tap Set on the last line for each tax you had a balance on — VAT, PAYE, income tax or turnover tax — and say whether you owed it or SARS owed you a refund. Your SARS statement of account for that day has the figure. There's one balance per tax.
10. The navy card on Overview is your opening balance sheet: what the business had, what it owed, and the difference — what it was worth to you on day one, the figure your accountant starts from.

When an old debt is paid

When a customer pays an invoice from before your books started, match the payment to it as you would any invoice — in Banking → + Add, a bank statement, Quick Log or WhatsApp. It counts as money collected, not as a sale, because the sale was last period's: it stays out of your Profit & Loss, Tax Jar, sales reports and annual return. Paying an old supplier invoice works the same way on a money-out line, and stays out of your costs.

• VAT follows your basis. On the invoice basis the VAT on an old invoice or supplier invoice was declared before your books started, so it isn't declared again. On the payments basis it's declared when the money moves — so it goes on the VAT201 for the period the customer pays you, or you pay the supplier.
• Income tax you owed SARS on day one is paid off first: when you pay it after the start date, your Tax Jar counts it as last year's bill settled, not as this year's tax set aside — except a payment for the tax year your books started in or a later one, which the jar counts towards that year: one you recorded with a return (marked filed on the SARS screen), or one you picked that year for in Banking. A payment dated after today settles nothing until that day. Your Profit & Loss still shows it under Tax paid on account, because it was paid, and says how much of it was last year's — taking payments in date order, so it can name a different payment than the jar does; your taxable income is the same either way.
• A credit note against an old invoice is a real event of today: it reduces this period's sales and VAT, the way a credit note always does.

Changing a figure later

Come back to the same screen and tap Change next to it. Moving the start date doesn't move figures you've already saved — each is still true of its own day — so every one on the old date is marked in amber, and listed under Still to set on Overview, until you set it for the new date.

• Removing a figure always takes two taps: the red button at the bottom of its form, then Yes, remove it.
• Removing something you owned only takes it off if you didn't own it after all. If you sold it, record the sale in the Asset Register instead, and a sold one can't be removed here until the sale is taken back.
• An old invoice or supplier invoice can be changed or removed here only until money or a credit note is recorded against it. After that it's part of your records — undo the payment or credit first.
• Changing opening balances needs edit access to Opening Balances. Owners have it; a team member's access is set in Team like any other tool.

Send your opening balances to your accountant

• Once your start date is set, 📄 PDF and 📊 CSV / Excel on the Overview tab give you that balance sheet and everything behind it: each account, what you owned, who owed you, who you owed, loans and SARS. It is the page your accountant starts your books from. On a phone, each opens your phone's share menu with the file attached, so you can send it on WhatsApp or email, or save it; on a computer it downloads.