I've entered all my starting balances for bank accounts and credit cards for the start of 08/09 financial year.
Then I entered all my transactions and reconciled the statements and the closing balances for all accounts now match.

Unfortunately the balancing account is showing an opening & closing balanced of around £9k and I'm not sure why this is?

I assume the blancing account has to be zero or the accounts are incorrect?

Hmmmm, could this be the answer?

The balancing account is attempting to resolve the difference between my opening current account balance (£12k) and my opening amex balance £3k. So it balances £9k equity because it doesn't know where this £9k came from?

In reality of course the£12k opening balance of my current account came from 'retained earnings' from the previous year but because I started the using solar from 08/09 then my retained earnings starting balance was £0 which is not true.

Could I correct this by simply entering the 'balance account' opening balance as the 'retained earnings' opening balance?

Hello Gary,

Yes, you have got it exactly. The balancing account is used to 'balance' the other accounts to ensure that total assets equals total liabilities plus equity - ideally it should be zero. If you set the retained earnings opening balance to £9,000 the system will automatically set the balancing account to zero.

Regards,