Bank Account Starting Balance

Unless your physical bank account is brand new and no transactions have been posted, most likely you will want to enter a starting balance in your Rentec Direct account that matches your bank account to ensure bank reconciliation and report accuracy. 

Adding a Bank Account Starting Balance

Adding a beginning balance in the bank ledger of your account is straightforward. 

In your Rentec Direct account:

1. Click Banking from the main menu.
2. Right-click a Bank Account and choose Update Balance on the specific bank account.
   
   Note: You will also find an Update Balance option inside every bank ledger. 
3. Fill in the details for the account adjustment. 
   
   
   1. Enter a Date that is before you begin tracking income and expense transactions on this ledger. Often that would correspond to that bank account bank statement end date. 
   2. Enter a beginning balance in the Desired Balance field. This will begin your rolling balance for that ledger in the software. Typically this would be the ending balance on your bank statement.
      
      Important Note: For reconciliation purposes, you can either subtract any known outstanding items that haven't yet cleared and enter that new total. Or, allow the Reconciliation tool to make that account adjustment when you do your first reconciliation. 
      
      More information on reconciliations can be found here: Bank Account Reconciliation
   3. We recommend keeping this Adjustment Category as Uncategorized.
      
      You are welcome to create a Starting Balance category and instructions can be found here: Setting Up Categories | Chart of Accounts 
   4. The Description is auto-filled as Account Adjustment. You may edit the description to reflect Starting Balance or any other wording you wish. This description will display in the memo section of the ledger for reference. 
      

4. Click Post Adjustment to save.

Beginning Balance Accounting for Bank Ledgers

The starting balance added to the ledger will display as the first entry on your bank ledger. All transactions associated with this ledger will display in either the debit or credit columns under that starting balance. The right-hand Balance column will automatically keep a running balance for you.

Entering Historic Data

When you are first getting started in the software, you will need to decide your start date for the system to begin tracking transactions and what information you need for reconciling and reports. These decisions are important because it will determine which of the following methods to use to track historic data. 

Easy Method

Likely you've saved all the data from your previous software so when tax season arrives, you'll use the previous data for that portion of the year and Rentec data for the rest of the year.

In addition to adding a bank ledger starting balance, you'll enter a starting balance for every tenant and property.

System Advice: Do not associate those starting balances with this bank ledger. Those transactions should have the bank set as NONE. 

More information on adding a tenant starting balance can be found here: Tenant Starting Balance

More information on adding a property starting balance can be found here: Property Starting Balance

Complete Method

If you'd rather not have two sets of data come tax season, the complete method would be a good option. 

You have two choices: 

1. If you wish to have all transactions start on January 1st in your software, use the beginning bank balance instructions above but enter the date as December 31st and chose the amount that matches your bank statement on that date. Then, starting with January 1st transactions enter all transactions on the Tenant and Property ledgers to mirror what occurred in real life. 
   
   Important Note: All transactions will display in the reconciliation tool so you are able to create historic reconciliation reports. 
2. If you do not want to do historic reconciliations, there are two options:
   1. Follow the instructions at the top to enter the bank ledger beginning balance for a recent start date. Then, as you enter each Property and Tenant transaction, leave the bank account as NONE. 
      
      Note: By choosing this method, none of the historic transactions will display in the bank ledger. 
   2. Follow the instructions at the top to enter the bank ledger beginning balance for a recent start date. Then, enter each Property and Tenant transaction and then edit each transaction to change the status to Reconciled.  
      
      Notes: By choosing this method, all of the transactions will display in the bank ledger. However, both options keep the transactions from displaying in the Reconciliation tool. 

More information on reconciliations can be found here:  Bank Account Reconciliation

Note: If you are starting your Rentec Direct account later in the year, will need to make a decision between the easy or complete method for your business needs.