I have just sent a statement to a customer in lieu of an overdue invoice reminder. It struck me that,the statement could look very confusing as there is no opening balance. He can see an invoice, a payment for the same amount and another invoice (a regular identical order) but somehow he owes for two invoices.
Would it be feasible to show both start and end balances on a statement?
The statement is really only there to show recent activity, most importantly any outstanding invoices on the account.
The other elements are configurable, e.g. show payments, credit notes etc. Adding an opening and close balance given the current format wouldn’t work unless we enforced all elements to be visible in chronological order, so there’s a clear audit trail from the opening balance to the close balance. Personally I think this will obfuscate the statement, particularly with very large accounts, you may end up with 100s of entries on a single statement.
Client statements are used primarily as a means to ensure outstanding debts are clear and settled promptly, sometimes the more information you add here the less effective it becomes in this objective.