Trial Balance Report

What is a trial Balance?

A trial balance is a list of all the accounts (chart of accounts) at a given date, together with the balance (the value) shown either as a debit or credit balance. In the double entry bookkeeping system, if correct, the sum of all debit balances equals the sum of all credit balances. An example of a trial balance: -

The Trial Balance report is a statement of all account balances at any specified date. It is a convenient method for checking that all the transactions and all the balances up to the date specified have been entered correctly in the ledger accounts.

The report lists all of the debit and credit balances extracted from each of the accounts excluding any accounts with no balance. The total of the debit and credit balances can then be compared and if the two totals agree, we can be reasonably confident that the bookkeeping procedures have been carried out accurately.

As At Date

You can specify an As At Date for the transaction. The date can either be entered manually or selected from the pop-up calendar by clicking the  icon. The As At Date must be entered in the format DD/MM/YYYY, for example, 01/01/2000.

Clicking the "Last Year End" button is a short cut for populating the AS AT Date field with last year end date.

When entering dates manually, a date guessing routine speeds up the input by taking the user input and assuming the missing month and or year based on the current date as the user leaves the field i.e.

the date today is 30th October 2009

• User enters 15 or 15/ and tabs - field displays 15/10/2009
• User enters 15/9 or 15/9/ and tabs - field displays 15/9/2009

Last Year End

Click Last Year End to set the As At Date to the date of the last financial year-end.

Year Start

Click Year Start to set the As At Date to the start of the current financial year. By default "Opening Position" will be selected to exclude any transactions recorded on that date. To include transactions on that date simply deselect "Opening Position".

Opening Position

Selecting "Opening Position" will set the date to the start of the current financial year and transactions on that date will be excluded. To include transactions on that date simply remove the tick from "Opening Position".

Report Output

The report is printed to screen and you can drill-down on individual lines to see the underlying transactions. The report can also be downloaded in PDF, XLS, or CSV format. Alternatively you may saved a copy of the report on Liberty to be viewed under menu option:

Reports - Saved Reports

Customers/Suppliers/Stock

The initial listing will show aggregate figures for each of customers, supplier and stock groups. Simply click on the group that you wish expand and the detail of the selected group will be shown. Click on the group heading again and it will revert to an aggregated figure.

Drill-down

Click on the account you want to view and the system will open a new window showing all the transactions that make up the total in the trial balance for that account. By default only the transactions for the year you are reporting on will be presented but you can extend the date range by modifying the date range.

Re-assign Selected Items

Single or multiple transactions may be re-assigned to another account by selecting from the Select Reassign To Account drop-down box an account to which the transactions need to be moved.

Note this is a powerful feature and must be used with care and understanding.

Select those transactions required to be moved by ticking the selection box for each. Note all items in the screen date window may be selected by ticking Select All

When ready, click the REASSIGN button to move those transactions.

Analyse

Click ANALYSE where available to modify existing transactions. In using this feature you need to think carefully about the impact of your change and whether it is acceptable based on the needs of your organisation, its accounting policies, and whether the change causes your accounts to differ from what you have already reported to statutory or tax bodies. Transactions can only be changed and saved if they are dated after the later of the last closed year end and any user configured "Transaction Lock Date" on the accounting options tab of the business profile.