BALANCE SHEET OUT OF BALANCE

The Balance Sheet, one of the Financial Statements, gets its balance information strictly from the Chart of Accounts (COA) database file (COA.DBF).  It determines the account section levels (Assets, Liabilities, Equity) that each account, from the COA, falls under based on the account levels written in the program (refer to your manual for COA account levels). Here are some root issues that can cause the Balance Sheet to be incorrect.

1) MISSING ACCOUNTS

It is common that when new accounts are added to the Chart of Accounts (COA), they are not manually added to the Balance Sheet in the Financial Statement Setup Window.

The way to check this is to create a new test Balance Sheet and generate it off of the property that is out of balance. Then run that test statement and compare it to your statement to see if there are accounts missing. The Financial Statements do not change when new accounts are created and thus need to be adjusted again after new accounts are entered. Please refer to the manual for adding, removing, and working with accounts in the Financial Statement Setup Window.

2) OPENING BALANCES

If there is an error in the opening balances that were entered into the system, or if the opening balances have changed, it may cause the Balance Sheet to be out of balance for subsequent months/years. Running a balance sheet for the first month will give you an idea if this is a problem or not.

(Property Manager EDGE only)

You can fix this by clearing out and re-entering the opening balances for the Property for the first year you have Chart of Accounts.  To to this:

   1. Make a backup.

   2. Run the Ledger Reposting Process located in the System Menu | Utilities Submenu.  Run it for the bank id the

       property belongs to.  Make sure to uncheck the "Retain Opening Balances" checkbox.  This will reset all opening

       balances to zero.

   3. Re-enter the opening balances in the Opening Balance Entry Window located in the System Menu | Setup Submenu.

       Make sure you date the opening balance entries for the first day of the first month of the first year you have Chart

       of Accounts.

4) CHANGING ACCOUNT TYPES

A problem can occur with accounts if it changes from CREDIT to DEBIT or from DEBIT to CREDIT when going from one year to the next. Print a Chart of Accounts Report for each year to verify that the account has kept its G/L type. The account type can be changed in the Chart of Accounts Window. If the balances don't recalculate correctly you may need assistance from Technical Support.

5) INCORRECT CHART OF ACCOUNT FIGURES

To determine if the COA balances are not posted correctly you will need to compare a few reports: a) General Ledger Report (summary) with a date range for the same month as your balance sheet, b) General Ledger Report (summary) with a date that starts the month before to the last day in the month of the Balance Sheet. Make sure you are not missing a day on the G/L Report ending date. If the ending balances on those reports do not match the Balance Sheet balances then you will need to run the Reposting Process. The instructions for the reposting process may be obtained from Technical Support.