Why would an account on the Balance Sheet or Income Statement not match its corresponding value on the reports?

Many times a customer will call and ask why the Accounts Receivable amount on the Balance Sheet does not match the Accounts Receivable amount on the Aged Receivables report. Or they might be trying to match the Revenue amount on the Income Statement to the Revenue amount on the Revenue-By-Item report.

In order to understand why these two figures might differ, you should understand where the two figures come from.

1. The amount which appears on the Aged Receivable report is created by the program.

2. The amount which appears as Accounts Receivable on the Balance Sheet is created by the user. There is NO programmatic connection between these two numbers. In other words, it is Accounts Receivable on the Balance Sheet only because the user says it is Accounts Receivable.

What do we mean “created by the user”? The user controls what goes into the Balance Sheet in all aspects;

1. By identifying the Account number to be used in the setup. These would include establishing the default accounts in Company Edit, as well as the specific accounts in Item Edit and the Adjustment Edit forms.

2. By identifying the correct Account number on each Payables Invoice as you enter them.

3. By posting the journals into the correct period. If you have not posted journals dated in June 2006 into the corresponding period for June 2006, which would normally be period 6-2006, you cannot expect the Account Receivable amount on the Balance Sheet for Period 6-2006 to match an Aged Receivables report for 6/30/2006.

Now, there is a logical connection between these numbers in that we expect these two numbers to agree. But, this assumes the user is doing the above steps correctly. So the question is, "Has the user sent the Accounts Receivable amounts to the proper Accounts via journals?". If the answer is "No", the program is working correctly and the user simply needs to fix their setup and/or posting process. If the answer is "Yes" and you are still not getting the correct amounts, you need to investigate further.