Finding Other Transactions Affecting Accounts on Certain Reports

Modified on Wed, 29 Nov 2017 at 02:25 PM

This article applies to the Accounts Receivable Aging, Accounts Payable Aging, Open Client Deposit Report, Open Vendor Deposit Report, and the Work in Process Report (Pro Only).

The "Other Entries Affecting" amount in the totals section of the report is the amount of difference between the sum of the records on the report and the General Ledger Balance for the account.  For example, if on the Aged Accounts Payable Report there is $100.00 in the totals section under "Other Entries", then the Accounts Payable Account Balance for the respective period does not match the report by $100.00.

To track down this amount we are looking for transactions that were posted to the Accounts Payable Account (in our example) that normally do not show on the Accounts Payable Report.  For Accounts Payable, the only entries that should be in this account are purchases and payments (checks), any other type of entry, journal entries, client invoices, etc. are not acceptable and are most likely in this account due to an error or incorrect settings.  For Accounts Receivable, the only entries that should be in the A/R account are client invoices, client invoice adjustments, and payments on the invoices.

To get a list of other entries, we can use the Account Inquiry Report under General Ledger Reports. 



Using our example the report should be printed for the Account Payables Account (20000) and the Starting Fiscal Month should be rolled back to the earliest possible setting.  The Ending Fiscal Month should be set to the same period that the report (A/P Aging in our example) was run for.  Make sure that the report is printed to the preview window because it will be many pages long.   The Account Inquiry will list all entries in the A/P account in type order.  We are looking for types of transactions that do not start with the words "Purchase, Hand Check, or Computer Check".  The following shows good entries:



The sum (net debit/credit) of all entries that are not Purchase, Hand Checks, or Computer Checks should equal the "Other Entries" amount.  These "bad" transactions should be listed at either the beginning or the end of the report.  For example, Misc. Cash Receipts and Journal Entries (especially if they do not sum to zero) should not be in our Accounts Payable Account.  Check the first page of the report and skip to the last page to see if there are any entries such as these, the "bad" entries listed should be corrected to hit the correct account.

(first two entries are "good", the rest are "bad")