An opening balance is the first ledger entry for a product, recording the stock you already hold when the product enters the system, and it sets the base that every receipt, issue, and projection afterward stands on. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions, a new install starts with no stock history, so seeding each product with an honest opening balance is the first inventory task. Do it through the ledger and on-hand is trustworthy from day one; skip it and every projection starts from zero or, worse, from a hand-typed number with nothing behind it.
This post explains how opening balances work, why they go through the ledger, and how to seed a go-live cleanly. It sits under the EDGEBIC planning guide and builds on the inventory ledger explained.
What an opening balance is
An opening balance is a single positive ledger entry of a dedicated opening-balance type. It records two things: the starting on-hand quantity for the product, and the initial unit cost that seeds the moving-average cost. It is the ledger's version of the go-live stocktake number, written once so that on-hand can be computed as the sum of the ledger from the very first entry.
Because on-hand is always the sum of the ledger, an opening balance is not a cosmetic setting; it is the actual first data point. Without it, a product's ledger sum is zero, and a projection for that product opens at zero even if the warehouse is full.
Why it goes through the ledger, not a field
On-hand in EDGEBIC is a derived figure: the running sum of every ledger entry, cached for fast display but never authoritative on its own. That design has a consequence for seeding. You do not type a starting quantity into an on-hand box; you post an opening balance that the on-hand cache is then computed from.
The reason is integrity. A hand-typed on-hand would be a number with no record behind it, and the cache and the ledger sum would drift, which the anomaly report flags. Posting an opening balance keeps the two in agreement from the start: the cache equals the ledger sum because the ledger sum is the opening balance. This is the same discipline that makes every later movement auditable.
A worked seed: three products at go-live
Imagine a go-live with three finished goods and a stocktake:
| Product | Counted on hand | Unit cost |
|---|---|---|
| Valve body | 200 | $12.50 |
| Bracket | 340 | $3.20 |
| Casting | 0 | $8.00 |
Post one opening balance per product. The valve body gets a +200 opening entry at $12.50; the bracket gets +340 at $3.20; the casting gets a +0 or is simply left unseeded until its first receipt, since it has no stock to record.
After seeding, each product's on-hand equals its opening balance, and each carries its cost basis. The valve body's first projection opens at 200 rather than zero, so its projected available balance is meaningful on the first run. From here, normal operation takes over: builds post receipts, demand posts issues, and cycle counts post adjustments.
Opening balance versus window opening
Two things share the word opening, and keeping them apart avoids confusion. The opening balance is the seed entry described here, a one-time ledger record. The window opening on a projection calendar is a different figure: it is the ledger sum of all entries effective before the calendar's start date, computed fresh each time you open the calendar. The opening balance feeds into that window opening once real movements accumulate, but they are not the same object. The row-by-row reading guide covers how the window opening carries the projection forward.
Seed once, then never hand-edit
The single most important rule is that an opening balance is posted once per product. Posting a second opening balance does not reset the product; it adds another positive entry on top of the existing balance. If your first count was wrong, you correct it with an adjustment, not a second opening balance.
Say the casting's go-live count was recorded as 200 but the real figure was 185. Do not re-post an opening balance. Post an adjustment of −15 with a reason such as "go-live count correction." The ledger then shows the opening balance and the correction as two honest entries, and on-hand reads 185. A later reviewer sees exactly what happened and when, which is the whole point of an append-only record.
Getting a go-live right
Three habits make a clean seed. Take a real stocktake and post one opening balance per stocked product from that count, with the current unit cost so the cost basis is right from the start. Leave products with genuinely zero stock unseeded, or post a zero, rather than inventing a number. And after go-live, resist ever hand-setting on-hand; every change flows through a receipt, issue, or adjustment.
Getting this right pays off immediately. A correctly seeded catalog means the first projection run is trustworthy, the first replenishment suggestions are sized against real stock, and the first available-to-promise answers reflect what is actually on the shelf. It is the difference between a planning layer that is credible on day one and one that spends its first month being second-guessed. The same care that goes into safety stock levels and product classification belongs in the opening balances they all depend on, and it is a standard part of disciplined inventory management for manufacturers.
An opening balance is the first ledger entry for a product, recording the stock you already have on hand when the product comes into the system. It is a positive entry of a special opening-balance type that sets the starting on-hand and the initial unit cost. Every receipt, issue, and adjustment that follows builds on this base, so the opening balance is the foundation the whole running balance and every projection stands on.
Because on-hand is a derived figure, not an editable field. Typing a quantity into a cache would create a number with no record behind it, and the anomaly report would flag the drift between the cache and the ledger sum. Posting an opening balance writes a real ledger entry, so on-hand is computed from history from day one. Everything downstream trusts a ledger-derived figure and distrusts a hand-set one.
Once, at setup. The opening balance establishes the starting position for a product being brought into the system for the first time. After that, every change goes through a receipt, an issue, or an adjustment. Posting a second opening balance does not reset the product; it adds another positive entry on top of the existing balance, which is almost never what you intend. To correct a wrong opening figure, post an adjustment for the difference.
See how a clean seed sets up the whole planning layer in the EDGEBIC platform overview, or contact US for a demo.
Expert Q&A: Deep Dive
Q: We are going live with 40 SKUs. What is the cleanest way to seed their stock?
A: Post one opening balance per SKU with the physical count from your go-live stocktake and the current unit cost. That gives each product a single ledger entry establishing its on-hand and cost basis. Then let normal operation take over: builds post receipts, demand posts issues, and cycle counts post adjustments. Do not seed a product twice, and do not hand-edit any on-hand figure afterward; the opening balance plus the ledger keeps every SKU auditable from the first day.
Q: Our opening count for a casting was wrong by 15 units. Do we redo the opening balance?
A: No, post an adjustment for the difference instead. If you counted 200 but really had 185, post an adjustment of minus 15 with a clear reason such as go-live count correction. That appends a signed entry that brings on-hand to the true figure without touching the original opening balance. The audit trail then shows the opening balance and the correction as two honest entries, which is exactly what a later review wants to see.
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