Accounts Receivable Out of Balance

The balance of the Accounts Receivable account on your Balance Sheet should be exactly the same as the amount in the Total Due field on your Receivables Reconciliation Report for the same date.

Here are some reasons why you are out of balance:

• The Accounts Receivable account was used as the allocation account in any transaction (e.g., disbursement (CD), receipt (CR) or general journal (GJ) entry)
• The Accounts Receivable account was used as the allocation account on a Sale transaction
• Recently started a new fiscal year
• A Customer pre-payment exists, so AR will be Out of Balance until an Invoice is created
• Incorrect Linked Accounts (more information)
• Incorrect accounts for items (more information)

To find out whether a transaction was applied to the Accounts Receivable account:

• Click Find Transactions at any Command Center and select the Account tab
• Enter the Accounts Receivable account number and a date range that includes all possible transactions (e.g., 1/1/00 to 12/31/9999). All transactions will appear in the list
• If any of transaction shows a GJ (General Journal) in the Src column, delete or reverse the General Journal entries (unless they were adjustments for your opening Accounts Receivable balance) and reenter the transactions in the purchases window

To find out whether you've entered Accounts Receivable as the allocation account on an sale order:

• Go to Reports-->Index to Reports-->Accounts
• Highlight the Trial Balance Detail Report and then click on the Customize option
• In the Accounts dropdown, select your Accounts Receivable account number, and a long date range, (e.g., 1/1/00-12/31/9999)
• Click Ok and then Display
• Look for any one transaction that debits and credits the Accounts Receivable account

Recently started a new fiscal year:

• If you have a sale order dated in FY 2009 (11/30/09) but the payment isn’t made until FY 2010 (1/20/10) and the Start A New Year was processed (3/15/10). The sale order that refers to that customer payment is no longer on file (however, once you run the Receivable Reconciliation report for, lets say 3/30/10 you will be back in balance)

Reports:

• The Exceptions reports are indispensible for troubleshooting these issues. The Exceptions Receivables Reconciliation report is located under the heading of Exceptions in the Account section (Accounts tab) of the List of Reports
• The Trial Balance Detail report is also comprehensive and useful

Linked Accounts:

• Check Setup-->Linked Accounts, particularly Setup-->Linked Accounts-->Sales Accounts
• If using the Multi-currency feature, check the Receivable Accounts tab of other currencies (Lists-->Currencies)

Item Accounts:

Check the Profile of Items, verifying correct Expense or Cost of Sales account, Income account, and Inventory account. A fast way to do this would be to select File-->Export Date-->Items. Select to export the Item Number. Then select the Buy, Sell, Inventory fields, as well as the account fields for these fields. Open the resultant file in Excel or Numbers. Verify accounts.

Warning:

• Historical Purchases and Debit Memos will debit and credit your Accounts Receivable account, however, these transactions are correct. Do not remove them

Note:

• The Aged Receivable report shows ALL transactions regardless of the date entered as the Aging Date. This report shows the age of all transactions past the given date.
• The Receivable Reconciliation report shows transactions up to the date entered as the Aging Date.