Balance Sheet/Trial Balance and A/R Aging reports don't agree.

You might want your Balance Sheet and A/R Aging Report numbers to agree, but that won't happen when customer payments have come in after the report date, even if the invoices were dated before the report date.

The reason for this is that the A/R Aging Report defaults to Current, showing the current status (as of today) of all A/R transactions for the report's date range.  So if the bill has been paid as of today's date, it won't show.  The Balance Sheet or Trial Balance report shows the status of A/R as of the report date.

For example, let's say you have an invoice dated December 31st 2015 for $200.  The invoice is paid January 1st 2016.  You're running some year-end reports, and the A/R Aging Report as of December 31st 2015 would show zero for that customer (because the bill has now been paid), but the Balance Sheet and Trial Balance would show $200 (because they are showing the December 31st status). 

If you want to see the status of A/R as of December 31st 2015, and have these reports match, you'd need to change the Aging Method to Report Date.

Here's how:

1. Open the A/R Aging report.
2. Click Customize at the top-left of the report.
3. Under the section for Aging Method, click Report Date.
4. Click Run Report.

The report will balance to the Balance Sheet / Trial Balance as long as the Balance Sheet / Trial Balance is run using Accrual as the reporting method.

If this doesn't correct the issue:

• Make sure the date range on the reports match.
• Be sure you're comparing the correct numbers. On your A/R Aging report you want to match Open Balance to your Balance Sheet / Trial Balance amount for Accounts Receivable.

 

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