Troubleshooting Cash Totals: Verifying Opening Balances
Opening balances make sure Digits starts with the right cash number so your reports and dashboards stay accurate.
What an Opening Balance Is
In Digits, an Opening Balance is the amount in your bank account when Digits first starts tracking your data.
That number becomes the starting point for:
Total Cash on your Dashboard
Other cash and balance-related reports
If the opening balance is wrong, your cash metrics and history can look off.
How Digits Gets Your Opening Balance
Digits will try to pull your opening balance automatically in a few ways.
From QuickBooks Online (QBO)
If you connected your data from QuickBooks Online, Digits brings in the opening balance from QBO automatically.
You’ll see this logged as “imported from QuickBooks” in the Activity Log.
From the Bank (via Plaid)
If you connected your bank directly:
Digits uses Plaid to pull up to 2 years of transactions.
If your account activity falls within that window, Digits uses those transactions to calculate the balance on the date you connected.
When No Data Is Available
If Digits can’t see far enough back—usually because the account is older than what Plaid can provide—it does its best to estimate:
Digits calculates an opening balance based on the first transaction it can see.
It books that as a journal entry labeled “Digits generated opening balance.”
When You Might Need to Adjust (or Remove) the Opening Balance
You may need to update the Opening Balance if:
The Total Cash appears incorrect
Older transactions are missing
The opening balance doesn’t match the bank statement as of the connection date
You want to replace the generated balance with a more accurate one
How to Find the Opening Balance Entry
Because the Opening Balance represents the start of history, it’s often far back in the Ledger.
To locate it:
Go to Accounting → Ledger → All Transactions
Use the date filter to jump to the earliest available date
Look for a Journal Entry labeled:
Digits generated opening balance, or
Imported from QuickBooks
Tip: If scrolling is slow, narrowing the date range to the first month of activity usually surfaces the entry quickly.
Updating or Removing an Opening Balance
Opening Balances in Digits are recorded as manual journal entries, so you have full control over them. Unlike transactions pulled in through a bank connection, opening balance entries can be edited or deleted.
If an Opening Balance doesn’t look right, it’s usually best to delete it and recreate it with the correct amount, rather than trying to offset it later with additional entries.
Option A: Edit the Existing Opening Balance
Go to Accounting → Ledger → All Transactions.
Locate the Opening Balance entry (Journal Entry or Pay In).
Toggle to Edit mode at the top of the screen.
Adjust the amount.
Click Save & Close.
Option B: Delete and Recreate the Opening Balance
Step 1: Delete the Existing Entry
Open the Opening Balance journal entry.
Toggle to Edit mode at the top of the screen.
Click the Trash icon in the top right to delete.
Step 2: Create a New Opening Balance
Go to Ledger → All Transactions
Click New Transaction → Journal Entry
Enter the correct opening balance amount
Assign the appropriate accounts
Click Save & Close
Not sure what the right amount is? Look at your bank statement for the date when Digits started tracking the account.
Backfilling Historical Data (Optional)
If you have a CSV of older transactions, you can backfill to improve accuracy:
Go to Ledger → All Transactions.
Click the dropdown next to New Transaction → Import Bank Transactions.
Upload your CSV file and confirm the field mappings.
Click Next to complete the import.
✨ Digits will incorporate this data and improve the overall accuracy of metrics and history.
Need help? If your opening balance still doesn’t look right, check in with your accountant or email [email protected]—we’ll help you get it sorted.