Opening Balances are the breakdown of all the cash you hold in your client accounts, which are then added in to Jupix to give you a starting balance which reconciles with your client bank account.
According to the RICS, Rule 8 states that:
"the Aim is to ensure that clients’ money can be clearly linked to the clients to whom it belongs and is protected on their behalf at all times."
To get to a balance position, you'll need to include:
- Un-cleared payments out
- Landlords floats and retention's
- Overseas tax held
- Tenants deposits
- Prepaid rents and move in monies
- Monies that cannot be identified can be added on as a suspense balance
- Any monies relating to suppliers or agency fees should be paid out prior to transferring balances to Jupix
- Negative balances, whereby cash has been paid out of the bank account without adequate funds in place to cover it, cannot be added. In these instances, the agency would need to top up the bank account and then recover the monies back from the landlord or tenant once funds are available
Related articles:
Opening Balances: landlord and tenant balances
Receipt monies from an unknown source into the suspense account
