How to Fix Beginning Balance issues in QuickBooks Desktop?

QuickBooks is one of the most coveted and widely used software for any kind of financial requisites for your business. Irrespective of the size your business is, QuickBooks can be a perfect fit to manage your finances and accounting needs.

Speaking of which, QuickBooks Desktop is a pivotal part of this discussion. At times, while you are using QuickBooks Desktop you might get stuck with challenges in respect to fixing beginning balance issues.

Steps to Fix Beginning Balance Issues in QuickBooks Desktop

This article will help you in understanding how to fix beginning balance issues in QuickBooks Desktop 2024. The following section details each of the steps involved in fixing beginning balance issues in the QuickBooks Desktop.

How to Correct a Zero Balance?

To start with, the first thing to understand is how to correct a zero balance. For correcting a zero balance in QuickBooks Desktop, you need to recreate the opening balance.

Recreate the Opening Balance

This is essential when you reconcile the account for the very first time. Straight away you won’t be able to recreate the Opening Balance in QuickBooks Desktop since the option to do is not present in the respective Begin Reconciliation window. You have to start by creating a journal entry followed by creating mini-reconciliation so that you can rectify it.

So, the understanding begins by creating a journal entry that will make use of the correct date and amount which you wish to view in the Begin Reconciliation window.

Step 1: Navigate to the Company Menu and Choose Make General Journal Entries.

Step 2: Modify the date as of the Correct Statement Date Which is fetched from the Beginning Balance.

Step 3: Pick the Appropriate Account you would find from the Account drop-down. This would be taken from the first line.

Step 4: In the Debit Column, Enter the Correct Opening Balance.

Step 5: Choose Opening Balance Equity from the second line.

Step 6: Tap on Save.

For the second fold of this process, you need to perform mini-reconciliation. Doing mini-reconciliation would help you to correct the Beginning Balance in the respective Begin Reconciliation window.

Step 1: Visit the Banking Menu and choose Reconcile.

Step 2: Pick the appropriate account you would find from the Account drop-down.

Step 3: Matching to your Journal Entry, Enter the respective Statement Date and Ending Balance.

Step 4: Press Continue.

Step 5: Tap on the corresponding Journal Entry under the Deposits and Other Credits section. You would see that the amount which is shown for the Difference would be displayed as zero.

Step 6: Hit Reconcile Now.

To Fix an Incorrect Balance

Correct Edited, Deleted, or Cleared Transactions

Now if you are facing issues with fixing an incorrect balance, the next section is dedicated to the same. Out of the three types of transactions that are correctly edited, deleted or cleared, if you spot any discrepancy, to resolve it you would need to run a few reports.

To spot which of the three transactions is causing the discrepancy you need to run the following reports:

• Reconcile Discrepancy Report
• Audit Trail Report

Running Reconcile Discrepancy Report

Step 1: Visit the Reports Menu and choose Banking.

Step 2: Select Reconciliation Discrepancy.

Step 3: Make the Selection of the Appropriate Account and tap on OK. You would find the list of Transactions that were modified since the Last Reconciliation.

Step 4: On Locating the Discrepancy, Take note of the Transaction Date and the Entered/Last Modified.

Running Audit Trail Report

Step 1: Visit the Reports Menu and choose Banking.

Step 2: Select Reconciliation Discrepancy.

Step 3: Make the Selection of the Appropriate Account Which was last reconciled.

Step 4: Tap on the Latest Statement Date and Select the option that says, Transactions Cleared at the Time of Reconciliation.

Step 5: Click on Display and make note of the Statement and the Reconciliation Creation Date.

Step 6: Visit the Reports Menu and choose Accountant & Taxes followed by clicking on Audit Trail.

Step 7: Adjust the Account Filter to that of the account which was being reconciled.

Step 8: Click on Customize Report.

Step 9: From the Filters tab, Select Account which you would find from the filters.

Step 10: Pick the appropriate account you would find from the Account drop-down.

Step 11: On the Display Tab, Adjust the Date Filter by setting it to the from field blank along with the to date set to the statement date.

Step 12: Hit OK.

Step 13: Adjust the Entered/Modified Filter by setting it to the from date set to the previous reconciliation creation date which you can get from the PDF, along with the to field as today’s date.

Hope this article has reached its objective of helping you with understanding how to fix beginning balance issues in QuickBooks Desktop.

If you still feel there are some grey areas of understanding how to fix beginning balance issues in QuickBooks Desktop, reach out to the experts who can further help you in a more detailed manner.

---

Frequently Asked Questions (Faqs)