Producing a Trial Balance

A trial balance should be printed at the end of each period. It is a fundamental audit report. You can use Trial Balance (TBL) to produce a standard trial balance report. You can choose to report on a range of accounting periods or entry dates. The trial balance report shows one line for each account which reports the following values for the period of the report: the opening balance, the total debits, the total credits, the net movement for the period, and the closing balance.

If the previous year's net profit and loss is not equal to zero, the balancing figure is printed immediately prior to the report totals. See 'Ledger Cleardown''.

You can produce subtotals, based on the setting of Trial Balance Subtotal - Position of Character field in Ledger Setup (LES).

The trial balance is produced using the SunSystems Reporting functionality. This means that you can design your own trial balance report, if required. If you are unfamiliar with the steps required to print, view or store a report, see 'Running a Report'.

Trial Balance (TBL)

Select By: The Select By setting determines how the transactions are selected for the report. Four options are available:

Accounting Period - this is the default setting which allows you to include transactions for a range of accounting periods. If a balance file has been created for the ledger it is used when this option is selected.
Transaction Date - this option includes transactions for a range of transaction dates.
Force Generation from Ledger File - ensures the report is produced from the ledger file, rather than the balance file, while selecting by accounting period.
Entry Date - this option includes transactions for a range of entry dates.

Accounting Period / Transaction Date / Entry Date From and To: Depending on the option you have chosen for the Select By setting, enter either the date or range of dates, or the period or range of periods, to be included on the report. If you have chosen to select by Accounting Period, and only want transactions for the current accounting period, leave these fields blank.
Value Basis: The currency value you want to report on. You can select base currency, second base/reporting currency, or fourth currency.

Note: You can only select fourth currency if it is being used as a fixed currency.

Summarize Debtor Balances: If this field is set to Yes, the debtor/receivables account balances are totalled and printed as a one line summary. If debtor accounts are present in different ranges in Chart of Accounts (COA), with other account types located between the ranges, one summary is printed for each range.

Summarize Creditor Balances: If this field is set to Yes, the creditor/payables account balances are totalled and printed as a one line summary. If creditor accounts are present in different ranges in Chart of Accounts (COA), with other account types located between the ranges, one summary is printed for each range.

Summarize Client Balances: If this field is set to Yes, the client account balances are totalled and printed as a one line summary. If client accounts are present in different ranges in Chart of Accounts (COA), with other account types located between the ranges, one summary is printed for each range.

Select Transactions: The type of transactions to be included in this report.