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Run and understand the Customisable Trial Balance

Created on  | Last modified on 

Summary

How to Run and understand the customisable Trial Balance in Sage Accounting.

Resolution

When to run the customisable Trial Balance report and how to show data for different periods.
If you’re not sure what the Trial Balance report is for, see About the Trial Balance.

 NOTE: This topic may describe options you don't have on your report. If you're missing something, find out more in Changes to Reporting. 

When to run it

Businesses often run the Trial Balance report at set times in their business cycle or financial year. For example, monthly or quarterly.

You can run it any time you want to see or analyse all your ledger account balances.

How to run it

By default, the report opens showing data for the current month.

From Reporting, select Trial Balance.

How the new Trial Balance is different

The new Trial Balance report:

  • Has three pre-configured 'Default views' to view your Trial Balance data out the box

  • Includes predefined date ranges for each default view with descriptions, so you know exactly what data you'll get on the report

  • The option to Summarise profit and loss values is always on

  • Allows you to show totals for selected periods or a grand total

  • Lets you compare across periods or financial years and track the variance across periods

The new Trial Balance allows you to decide how the selected date range is shown with column options. Show totals in columns by Month, Quarter, or as a cumulative Total. On the old Trial Balance report, data always shows as a cumulative Total.

The new Trial Balance can easily be set to show the same information as the current report using the options in the Customise report panel.

In addition, the new report allows further customisation. For example, including previous year and period comparisons with variances or choosing the order in which to show the periods. Most importantly, the new report can show totals by analysis types or show you a side by side comparison of analysis types in their own columns.

How to use the Trial Balance

Drill down balances

If you see balances you want to investigate, you can drill down on the balances to see details.

Select any underlined balance to see what makes it up. If you drill down on:

  • An amount which spans many accounts or months, the Nominal Activity Summary report opens for you to review the balances

  •  

    A single account for a month the Nominal Activity Detailed report opens for you to review the transactions made to the account

To return to the original report, close the open report (or reports) or select Back in your browser.

Share your report with others

When you're happy with your report, you can save or export it. Select:

  • Save as. To name the report and save it to run again later. You can find your named report on the Custom tab

or

  • Export. To save a copy for your records or to share with others. You can choose PDF, CSV, or Excel format




Related Solutions

About the Trial Balance