Financial statements
Read the trial balance
Check that the books balance and see every account's opening balance, period movement and closing balance, with an optional comparison to a prior period or year.
2 min readLast updated
In this article
The trial balance lists every posting account of a branch with its balance before the period, its debits and credits during the period, and its balance at the end. Run it before you prepare the statements: if total debit does not equal total credit, something needs attention first.
Steps
Open Reports & Analytics › Accounting Reports › Accounting Trial Balance.
Set the period in From and To.
Optional: pick a branch in Branch ID. When you leave it empty, the report uses your current branch.
Optional: in Compare, choose Prior period or Prior year to add comparison columns.
Select Apply.
What the screen shows
Three tiles sit above the table:
Total debit and Total credit: all debits and credits posted to the listed accounts during the period.
In balance or Out of balance: the difference between the two. A balanced ledger shows zero in a green tile.
Below the tiles, Top accounts by balance charts the ten accounts with the largest closing balances.
The table has one row per account:
Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
Code, Account | The posting account from the chart of accounts. |
Opening | Debits minus credits of everything posted before From. |
Debit, Credit | Movement during the period. |
Closing | Opening plus debit minus credit. |
Balances are shown debit-positive: an asset or expense balance is normally positive, while a liability, equity or revenue balance is normally negative and appears in red. Accounts with no balance and no movement are left out.
With a comparison, the table adds Prior debit, Prior credit, Prior closing and Change. Prior period is the window of the same length that ends where your period starts; Prior year is the same dates one year earlier.
Drill into an account
Select any row to open its detailed account statement and see the entries behind the figure.
Export
Use Export Excel or Export PDF. The file contains every account and the totals row.
Common questions
Which accounts appear? The posting (level-5) accounts of the selected branch, the accounts you post entries to. Group accounts are summed in the financial statements instead.
The report says Out of balance. What now? Narrow the period to find when the difference started, then review the entries for that day in the general ledger.