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Glossary

Opening and closing balance

Primo and ultimo are Latin for first and last, and Danish bookkeeping uses them for the opening and closing balance. Primo is the balance an account starts the period with, ultimo the balance it ends with. The difference is the period's movements.

Updated 21 October 2026

What is an opening and a closing balance?

Balance sheet accounts are not reset at the turn of the year. The bank account ends the year at 84,000 kr. (ultimo), and the same amount is next year's primo. If you book receipts of 30,000 kr. and payments of 22,000 kr. in January, ultimo for January is 92,000 kr. Opening balance plus movements always equals the closing balance.

The income statement's accounts, by contrast, start at zero every financial year, so they show the year's revenue and costs alone. Primo and ultimo are therefore used of the balance sheet: assets, equity and liabilities. A financial year's ultimo is the next year's primo, and both figures must agree with the bank, the debtor list and the creditor list.

Opening and closing balance in Veneti

In Veneti the balance sheet shows every account as a balance, and the Opening/Closing switch opens the balance at the start of the period beside the balance at its end. Click a figure and the opening balance is listed first, then the period's entries, so you can follow the path from one figure to the other.

The SAF-T file for a period carries what was booked before the period as each account's opening balance, and in the annual report a balance account's figure is its balance at the end of the financial year.

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