Printing A Trial Balance

Once journals have been posted you will need to double-check that what you have entered is correct. While your opening journal entries may balance this does not necessarily mean that all the information you have entered is correct. A common error, for example, is to transpose two numbers next to related accounts. An accepted way to check for errors is to print a trial balance report.

The original purpose of the trial balance was to ensure that all the debits in the system matched all the credits. Since CAPITAL GL Controller does not permit the posting of unbalanced entries, the function of the trial balance has become somewhat redundant. It is still useful, however, for checking for other types of input error and also as a cross-check to ensure that the data held in the GL master file is not corrupted. The only situation in which the GL master file would not balance would be due to hardware fault, operator error (such as turning the machine off at an inappropriate time or intentionally vandalising data) or some conflict with misbehaved software damaging your computer files. (incorrectly installed network software can often cause havoc with your data, as well as intermittently faulty computer equipment in need of service.)

From to the main menu. Choose Reports|Trial Balance from the menu. The following screen will appear:

Press tab twice to skip the from account code and to account code fields. The report will default to include the entire chart of accounts. Enter the period you want balances for, i.e., 1, in the print for period field and click Include year-to-dates field. Have your printer ready to print, then click Ok then select print when the report settings box appears.

Tick off the balances on the trial balance against your opening balances records. If mistakes are found repeat the procedures described in section "Entering opening balances". This involves creating a new batch with the correcting entries in them. The description of the batch would be "corrections to opening balances" or some other applicable remark.