How to Correct an Out of Balance in General Ledger Trial Balance for Sage 100

Description

– How to Correct an Out of Balance in General Ledger
– Trial Balance is out of balance
– General Ledger detail report is out of balance
– General Ledger is out of balance
– Balance Sheet is out of balance

Disclaimer

Backup Warning
Use caution when working with the below product functionality. Always create a backup of your data before proceeding with advanced solutions. If necessary, seek the assistance of a qualified Sage business partner, network administrator, or Sage customer support analyst.

Resolution

Two ways exist for the General Ledger to become out-of-balance. The following options help to determine which way the General Ledger is out-of-balance, and how to resolve it.

Debits do not equal the credits:

The first way to determine if General Ledger is out-of-balance is when the ‘Debits’ do not equal the ‘Credits’. Generate the Trial Balance Report and the General Ledger Detail Report (must be generated for all accounts). Verify that the ‘Debit’ column report total does not equal the ‘Credit’ column report total. See below:

Generate General Ledger Detail Report:

1. Open General Ledger, Reports, General Ledger Detail Report
2. Under the Criteria section, select the same period as you generate the Trial Balance for
3. Select applicable year and period
4. Select All Accounts
5. Click Preview

Generate General Ledger Trial Balance:

1. Open General Ledger, Reports, General Ledger Trial Balance
2. Under the Options section, in the Type of Balance to Print drop-down list, select Beginning Bal/Activity/Ending Bal
3. Select the same period as you generate the GL Detail Report for
4. Select All Accounts
5. Click Preview 

The above Trial Balance Report shows the Beginning Balance, Activity and Ending Balance.

Note: if the ‘Report Total’, ‘Beginning Balance’ column does not equal zero. This shows that the out-of-balance occurred in a previous period.

An “in balance” report (when generated for all accounts) should show a ‘Report Total’ for the ‘Beginning Balance’ column equal to zero when generated for all accounts, the ‘Debit’ and ‘Credit’ amounts would be equal, and the ‘Ending Balance’ column would be zero. If one or more of these are true, General Ledger is out-of-balance.

How to resolve the above out-of-balance:

1. Run the Trial Balance Report for all accounts showing the Beginning Balance, Activity and Ending Balance. See the steps above.
2. If the Beginning Balance Report Total does not equal zero, run the Trial Balance Report again (as in step 1 for the previous period).
3. Continue this process until the Beginning Balance Report Total is zero.
4. To establish which entry is not a ‘double-sided entry’ (meaning the entry’s total debits do not equal the total credits):
   • Open General Ledger, Reports, General Ledger Detail by Source Report
   • Print the report for all journals, all batches, and for the date range of the period that is out-of-balance.
     • Note: If the report is many pages, it can be printed to deferred and viewed from there or previewed for a smaller range of dates (for example if Aug 2013 is out of balance, try running this report for the posting dates of 8/1 – 8/15 to help narrow down if the out of balance occurred during the first 15 days of the month)
5. Review the report to confirm each entry is a double-sided entry (in balance).
   • Example: On CD-0001 (the first entry) journal totals, the total debits equal the total credits. CD-0002 is an out-of-balance entry, the debit total does not equal the credit total. The cash portion of the entry is missing. A one-sided entry must be created for the portion of the entry that is missing.
6. Open General Ledger, Main, General Journal Entry
7. Enter the source journal, batch number, and posting date from the original register.  On the Lines tab, enter the accounts for only the lines that are missing..
8. Click Accept
9. Click One button.
   • Note: If the ‘One’ button is not available, the User does not have sufficient role permissions. see Related Article below, How to Create a One-sided Journal Entry
10. Print and Update the General Journal.

After the process completes, confirm General Ledger is no longer out-of-balance by comparing the totals of the Trial Balance Report and the General Ledger Detail Report for the same period. Now generate the Trial Balance report for the next period. Follow the above steps until the out-of-balance issue no longer exists.
Another out-of-balance issue occurs when the summary (GL_PeriodPostingHistory.M4T, used in the Trial Balance Report and financial statements) and transaction file (GL_DetailPosting.M4T, in the detail of the General Ledger Detail Report) totals per period do not equal.

Use the steps below to correct the out-of-balance issue only if the GL Detail Report vs the GL Trial Balance report out of balance amounts do not match:

1. Make a copy of the company.  See Related Article below, How to Create a New Company code and Copy Company Data from Existing Company Code.
2. In the Copy Company, recalculate the general ledger account balances using the General Ledger Utility (See Related Article below, How to Recalculate Account Balances).
3. Reprint the General Ledger Detail Report for all accounts to confirm the following:

1. • Out-of-balance lines do not appear in the detail of any accounts.
   • ‘Beginning Balance Report Total’ equals zero.
   • ‘Debit’ and ‘Credit’ column amounts equal.
   • ‘Ending Balance Report Total’ equals zero.
2. Verify the balances of all accounts on the Trial Balance Report
   • ‘Beginning Balance Report Total’ equals zero.
   • ‘Debit’ and ‘Credit’ column amounts equal.
   • ‘Ending Balance Report Total’ equals zero.
3. Open General Ledger, Utilities, Recalculate Account Balances
4. Click Proceed
   • If the Recalculate Utility corrects the out of balance and all account balances have been verified, repeat these steps in the live company.

8. Note: Make sure you back up your company again and all users are out of the company before doing steps above in the live company.

Note: Make sure you back up your company again and all users are out of the company before doing steps above in the live company.

Note: Not all out-of-balance register or journal postings require a correction with a one-sided adjustment entry in General Journal. Sometimes updates are interrupted because of an error (for example, in Sales Order). This puts only some of the G/L posting information for an update into the GL_DailyPosting.M4T file. If the Daily Transaction Register updates anyway (for example, by another user updating from G/L), it may be updated out-of-balance. However, after the error is resolved and the rest of the update finishes, the rest of the G/L posting information for the update may also update with the Daily Transaction Register. In this case, two separate updates that are both out-of-balance actually balance.