The trial balance and the general ledger

These two reports show your books account by account. They are mainly used to check a figure, or to answer a question from your fiduciary.

• The Trial balance gives, for each account, the total of its debits, of its credits, and its balance.
• The General ledger gives every transaction of an account, with its balance over time.

Before you start

In the Simple display, these two reports are under More, in the accounting menu. In Expert, they are under Reports. See Simple or Expert.

Check the trial balance

Open Accounting › Trial balance. The trial balance of the current financial year is shown, class by class.

1. Choose the Financial year and the period, as for the balance sheet: see Choose the date or the period.
2. Look at the Debits = credits check, at the top right. The Grand total, at the bottom, gives the same amounts for debit and credit.
3. Turn on Accounts without movement if you also want to see the accounts that have not moved.
4. Click an account to open its general ledger.

PDF and CSV download the trial balance shown. The financial year’s Trial balance can also be downloaded from Exports: see Exports for your fiduciary.

Follow an account in the general ledger

Open Accounting › General ledger, then type the account’s number or name in Search for an account.

1. The account shown: change it by typing another number or name.
2. The arrows: move to the previous or next account among those that moved in the period.

Above the table, four figures sum up the account: Opening balance, Total debit, Total credit and Closing balance. The table gives each transaction, its entry number and the “Balance” after it.

Click a transaction: its entry opens on the right, with its lines and its supporting voucher. See in the journal opens it in the journal. On the keyboard, ↑ and ↓ move through the transactions, Enter opens the entry.

The opening balance

It takes the account’s balance at the end of the previous financial year, or the one from your opening balance sheet.

PDF and CSV download the general ledger of the account shown, for the period chosen.

Legal basis

• The general ledger consists of the accounts, on which the income statement and the balance sheet are based, and of the journal, which records all transactions in chronological order: Art. 1 para. 2 GeBüV, the Ordinance on the Keeping and Retention of Accounting Records (German version: fedlex has no English one).