Run and analyse the Trial Balance

Select As of in the Period field and enter a date to view category balances up to that day. For example, enter 29/06/2020 to see balances from when you started using Sage Accounting through to 29 June 2020. The report shows these balances in a simple four-column format.

To run an analysis report, select one of these options in the Period field:

• "This Year" or "Last year": View balances from 1 January to 31 December for the current or previous calendar year
• "This financial year" or "Last Financial year": See balances for the current or previous financial year, applicable if you've set a financial year end in Financial settings, Read our Set-up financial year, accounting dates and VAT article for more information
• "This Month" or "Last Month": View balances for the current or previous month
• "This quarter" or "Last quarter": See balances for the current quarter (three months) or the previous quarter
• "Custom": Select this option to input your own date range in the From and To fields

You may also want to add these adjustment options to the criteria:

This period only or Show opening & closing balances. Select This period only to see only movement in the selected period without the opening and closing balances. To include them, select Show opening & closing balances.

• When you enable 'Show opening & closing balances,' the report incorporates entries from earlier periods, including the previous financial year. These entries automatically populate the Opening Balance column for their respective categories.

• Also, if you choose to 'Summarise profit and loss values,' the Trial Balance report adds a summarised Profit and Loss line. This line consolidates Profit and Loss balances from all previous years onto one line, while listing the current year’s activity for each account below it.

If you tick the Summarise profit and loss values box, the summarised balance includes all the previous year’s transactions posted to the Profit and Loss categories plus any journal entries posted directly to the Profit and Loss account.

If you generate the report for a previous year, it details Profit and Loss accounts for each category, rather than summarising them on the Profit and Loss line for the reporting period shown in the middle column.

For instance, if your financial year concludes on 31 December, and you input three sales invoices throughout the year: one in the current month totalling £500, another in the preceding month for £200, and one in the prior financial year amounting to £100. (All invoices are recorded under the Sales Income category.). You select This Month (in the Period field) and select Show opening & closing balances before running the Trial Balance report. If you:

• Leave Summarise profit and loss values unticked, the report shows the Sales Income category balance of £500 for the current month and £300 in the Opening Balance column. The Closing Balance column shows £800
• Tick Summarise profit and loss values, the report shows the Sales Income category balance of £500 for the current month, £200 in the Opening Balance column, and £700 in the Closing Balance column. A total of £100 shows on the Profit and Loss line. If you expand the line, you can see that the transaction lines show zero balances in the month column and £100 shown in the Opening Balance and Closing Balance columns

The 'Hide zero balance accounts' option is enabled by default, which omits categories with zero balances from the report. If you disable this option, categories with activity in the period, resulting in a net balance of zero, will show. However, categories with no posting activity remain excluded.