Fix an Out of Balance General Ledger

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You can see that your general ledger is out of balance when the debits do not equal the credits. To verify that debits do not equal credits, you can print the General Ledger Trial Balance report for all accounts. If a General Ledger Trial Balance report is run showing Beginning Balance, Activity, and Ending Balance for all accounts, and the Beginning Balance column does not equal zero, then the out of balance occurred in a previous period. If the debit and credit amounts are not the same during the current period and the Ending Balance report total does not equal zero, then the out of balance occurred in the current period.

Note  The General Ledger Trial Balance report displays ending balances only.

You can also see where the debits do not equal the credits on a General Ledger Detail Report or a General Ledger Detail by Source Report.

 

To fix an out-of-balance general ledger

  1. Select General Ledger Reports menu > General Ledger Trial Balance.

  2. In the Type of Balance to Print field, select Beginning Bal./Activity/Ending Bal. For more information, see General Ledger Trial Balance - Fields.

  3. In the Operand for Account Number field, select All. Do not enter the Value fields. Click Print.

  4. Review the report to establish which entry is not a double-sided entry. This occurs when the total debits for the entry do not equal the total credits.

  5. Select General Ledger Reports menu > General Ledger Detail by Source Report.

  6. In the Source Type field, select All. For more information, see General Ledger Detail by Source Report - Fields.

  7. In the Operand and Value fields for Source Journals, Journal/Register Number, and Source Module, select All.

  8. In the Posting Date field, select the posting date range of the period that is out of balance.

Note If your report has a lot of pages, you can preview the report or print it as a PDF. For more information, see E-mail, Fax, or Print a Report as a PDF.

  1. Review the report to confirm each entry is a double-sided entry. Refer to the original printout of this register to determine what portion of the entry is missing.

  2. Make a one-sided entry to re-enter the portion of the entry that is missing. To create a one-sided entry, you must have the correct security set up for the user code. To create a one-sided journal entry:

  1. Select General Ledger Main menu > General Journal Entry.

  2. Enter the Source Journal, Entry Number, and Posting Date fields from the original register. For more information, see General Journal Entry - Fields.

  3. On the Lines tab, enter only the information that is missing.

  4. Click Accept. A message appears stating that the entry is out of balance. Click One. If you do not see the One button, you are not set up with supervisor rights.

  1. Select General Ledger Main menu > General Journal. Click Print. After printing the General Journal, you are prompted to update the journal. Click Yes.

  2. Confirm that you are no longer out of balance by printing the General Ledger Trial Balance again for the same period and comparing the totals. Then print the General Ledger Trial Balance report for all subsequent periods to verify that the general ledger is in balance.

The general ledger is in balance.