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How to reconcile when A/R Aging Summary (Historical) report has a different figure than the A/R account on Balance Sheet

Author: Steve Childs Reference Number: AA-01843 Created: 2012-01-23 22:45 Last Updated: 2013-11-19 21:43 0 Rating/ Voters

If the A/R figure on your A/R Aging report and your Balance Sheet do not match, follow these steps to correct the problem:

  • First
    • Make sure that all transactions on the Batch Post GL Transactions screen are posted.
    • Assuming that you may be comparing the figures for a date in the past, make sure that you are using the A/R Aging Summary (Historical) when comparing A/R figures for dates in the past.
  • Next,
    • Print the Detailed Trial Balance - Grouped by Operation report
      • Enter 1/1/2000 in the From Date
      • Enter the same To Date that you used for the Balance Sheet
      • Select your A/R GL account in the Account drop down selection field.
      • Click on the Summary option (in the top right corner, so you can view a 'Summary' of the transactions
      • Click Print Preview or Print option
      • Click the Preview button.
    • After the report has been printed or print previewed, note that the total of all Debits and Credits are totaled under each 'Operation'.  The key here is to look for any Debits or Credits under an operation that does not look logical for the A/R account.   Valid Operations for the A/R account would generally be Debits and Credits with an Operation = Invoice, Customer Payment, or Sales Order Payment, (or Beginning Balance, or any Year End Operations such as Close Year End and GL Compression).  Invalid Operations related to the A/R account would generally be almost any other Operation not mentioned above, but especially operations like GL Adjustment, Issue Check, Bank Deposit, Bank Adjustment, etc)
    • If you find any Debits or Credits that you suspect are Invalid Operations, then close the report and re-open it following each of the same steps above, but instead of selecting the Summary option (on the Report Selection Screen), select the Detail option, which will reveal the details of which date(s), transactions, etc that were posted under each Operation.  When you see the detail you will be able to make a plan of action of what needs to be deleted or reversed.  (The A/R Aging Summary (Historical) report is based on the A/R transactions in the Invoices and Payments--which are all related to the Invoice, Credit Memo and Invoice Payment type of Transactions.  Any operations that you see under any other Operation (on the report) are almost certainly wrong and the cause of the discrepancy between the reports. 
  • If you get to this point...and you cannot see any postings that look like Invalid Operations, it is possible that OneSource has made postings to 1 or more A/R Invoices that were in use (locked by) another user when the postings were made and/or from some type of bug. If you get to this point, the final step to make is to Batch Unpost and then repost any ranges of time where the reports don't match. (On the Batch Unpost GL Transactions screen, when you select the first drop down list, you would want to only un-post transactions related  to Receivables).  
    • NOTE1: If any of the suspected problems are in previous tax years AND if your Tax returns have already been filed, you may want to consider whether or not you want to go down the road of Batch Unposting transactions in tax years that have already been filed, as we typically have the opinion that a better solution is to make an adjustment to the GL before doing that.  
    • NOTE2: When comparing General Ledger reports (such as your Balance Sheet) with any Sub Ledger report (such as your AR Aging Summary Historical), and if they do not match and you are wonder 'which' to believe--our advice is almost always to believe the Sub Ledger report over the General Ledger--as the Sub Ledger is the source of all nearly all numbers that affect the General Ledger.  For instance, if your AR Aging Summary shows your total AR owed is $200,000 (which is every penny of the report is tied directly to a customer AR Invoice) and your GL Balance Sheet GL Account for your AR is $300,000, you would assume that the $200,000 number is correct, because you will have proof of every dollar on that report.  Put another way, assuming you wanted to buy a business and the business owner had $300,000 of AR listed on their balance sheet, but could only link $200,000 to actual outstanding AR Invoices, you would not want to pay for any more than $200,000 for the AR portion of the sale price. 
  • If you have done all of the steps above...and the reports still do not match, then please contact technical support at OneSource Software for additional assistance.