Import your opening balances
Opening balances are the starting general ledger balances for each of your chart of accounts as at your accrual start date. Importing them means your reports begin from the correct financial position rather than from zero. You can also skip this step and start with zero balances — you can come back and import opening balances any time before you enable accrual accounting.
Before you begin
Opening Balances is the final task on the setup checklist. You'll need to complete Financial Year End, Accrual Start Date, Accounting Periods, and Create System Accounts first, because opening balances are imported against those accounts and at that date.
Prepare your account balances as at the accrual start date — usually from your existing accounting system or a trial balance report. You'll need a debit or credit amount for each account, and optionally an allocation to a specific owner, property, tenancy, or ledger (fund for standalone accrual companies).
Download and fill in the template
The template is pre-populated with your company's chart of accounts and downloaded with your company name and accrual start date already filled in. It has three sheets:
Instructions — how to use the template
Opening Balances — where you enter your balances
Reference Data — valid values you can use for COA Code and the dimension columns (Owner, Property, Tenancy, Ledger)
From the Accrual Accounting Settings page, click Opening Balances.
In the Download Template section, click Download Template.
Open the Opening Balances sheet.
For each account you want to set a balance on, enter the amount in the Debit or Credit column — not both.
Delete any rows you don't need. Every row with a COA Code must have an amount.
Save the file when you're done.
A few things to keep in mind:
Total debits must equal total credits across all rows for the file to balance.
The Description, Service Date From, Service Date To, Owner, Property, Tenancy, and Ledger (Fund for standalone accrual companies) columns are optional. Fill these in if you want line-level detail for a balance.
To split a balance across dimensions — for example, across multiple owners — add extra rows with the same COA Code and different values in the dimension columns.
To add a balance for an account not in the pre-populated list, add a row and use a valid COA Code from the Reference Data sheet.
Upload and review
In the Upload Completed Template section, drag and drop your file or click browse your files. The file must be an .xlsx up to 10 MB.
Re-Leased shows a preview of your opening balances grouped by account type (Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Revenue, Expenses).
Check the totals at the top of the preview. If debits equal credits, you'll see a green Balanced badge. If not, you'll see a red Errors found badge along with a row-by-row error breakdown.
If you spot something wrong, click Upload Different File to replace the file with a corrected version.
Fix validation errors
If your upload has errors, you'll see a summary at the top of the preview and each problem row is highlighted with a short message explaining what needs fixing. Common issues include:
Debits don't equal credits — total debits and total credits across all rows must match exactly.
COA code must exist — the row has a COA Code that doesn't exist, check the COA code is correct.
Fix the errors in your template file, then click Upload Different File to re-upload. The Confirm Import button stays disabled until all errors are resolved and the file balances.
Confirm the import
Once the preview shows a green Balanced badge and no errors, click Confirm Import. Re-Leased posts the opening balances against your accounts, and the Opening Balances task is marked complete on the setup checklist.
Skip opening balances
If you don't want to import opening balances now, click Skip – start with zero balances at the bottom of the page. A confirmation banner appears — click Yes, Skip to confirm.
Your accounts will start with zero balances and the Opening Balances task will be marked complete. You can still come back to this page and import opening balances at any time before you enable accrual accounting. Once accrual accounting is enabled, opening balances can no longer be imported.
