Trial Balance

A trial balance lists every account with its opening balance, the debits and credits of the period, and the resulting ending balance — the standard checklist an accountant works through to verify the books before preparing statements. When your fiduciary asks for “the trial balance per year-end”, this is the report.

Go to General Ledger → Reports → Trial Balance (requires the trial balance permission).

Running the report#

Open Filters, set Date From and Date To for the period, and press Search.

• All Accounts — includes accounts with no movement in the period. Useful when reconciling against a complete chart; leave it off for a compact report. Accounts that carry an opening balance always appear, even without movement, so the balance columns add up.

Each row shows: Account · Description · Beginning Balance · Debit · Credit · Ending Balance. The account number is a link into the account ledger — described below.

Export XL and Export PDF produce the report as shown, including its subtotals.

Structure and subtotals#

The report follows your chart of accounts’ own hierarchy. Headings nest exactly as they do in the chart, and each group is closed by a Total row carrying the sum of everything beneath it — including every level below, not just the accounts directly under it. Headings themselves show no figures; the group’s total is the subtotal row.

Click any heading to collapse or expand it, or use the level selector in the toolbar to collapse the whole report to a given depth — a quick way to read the report at summary level before drilling in. Headings with nothing beneath them are hidden unless All Accounts is on.

The Search box filters on account number and description, keeping the parent headings of anything that matches so the result stays in context.

Reading the balances#

Balances are shown debit-positive: a positive figure is a debit balance, a negative one a credit balance. Ending Balance is the beginning balance plus the period’s movement.

The Total row at the foot is your correctness check — on books that balance, total debits equal total credits and both balance columns total zero. If they don’t, the report says so explicitly.

The trial balance reports the ledger as it actually stands, so it includes year-end closing entries. The Income Statement deliberately excludes them, which is why a closed revenue or expense account can differ between the two reports. Both figures are correct — they answer different questions.

The account ledger#

Clicking an account — here or on any amount in the Balance Sheet or Income Statement — opens the account ledger: one account’s complete statement for the period, titled with the account number and name.

A sticky Total row keeps the sums in view while you scroll. Even rows the system generated automatically link back to the originating customer or vendor document — the trail never dead-ends.

Export XL and Export PDF produce the account statement — exactly what an accountant means by “send me the ledger for account 1020”.