Article Objective: To assist users in navigating the Active Platform with generating a trial balance report and exporting balancing journals. Context: Users are able to generate a trial balance report which can be filtered by the transaction display types. Additionally, you can export journals tagged as 'Export Pending' from this area. Please refer to the Glossary for definitions of key terms used in this article. TABLE OF CONTENTS |
Generating a trial balance report
Select the relevant dataset, navigate to the Reports screen and click on the Trial Balance tab.
The following fields are required to be filled out to generate the report:
| Field | Detail | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Display | This field will limit the transactions displayed. See 'List of display types' below for more information. The system defaults to the 'Trial Balance' type. | Required |
| Debit/Credit, Opening and Movements, or Adjustments | To the right of the search bar, you can select whether you would like the report to show:
| Required |
| Account Type | Filters the displayed transactions based on where the account originated. There are two options:
| Required |
| Start Date | Automatically populated as the start date of the dataset. | Required (must be inside date range of the dataset) |
| End Date | Automatically populated as the end date of the dataset. | Required (must be inside date range of the dataset) |
| Show Account (checkbox) | By selecting this checkbox, it will display both the accounts in Active Ledger as well as their respective source accounts. | Optional |
| Show Tree View (checkbox) | By selecting this checkbox, it will display accounts in a heading format, splitting out revenue, expenses, assets, liabilities and equity, as well as further breaking down individual accounts under their respective headings. | Optional |
List of display types:
| Display type | Description |
|---|---|
| Trial balance | Includes all transactions from all sources |
| Imported balances | Only includes transactions and journals which were imported from the client file |
| Not exporting | Only includes Active Ledger generated journals used for presentation purposes |
| Pending export | Only includes Active Ledger generated journals which will be sent to the client file |
| Exported | Only includes Active Ledger generated journals that have been sent to the client file |
| Balancing | Only includes consolidated Active Ledger generated journals which have been sent to the client file |
Once the above sections are filled out accordingly, select Run Report.
Exporting journals tagged 'Pending Export'
If you are processing all journals through Active Ledger and not directly in the client accounting file, you will need to export any pending journals to the client accounting system. Exporting a balancing journal will 'tag' all transactions as exported, and store the net balancing journal in the system.
To export a balancing journal, run a trial balance report in the Reports section with the Display set as 'Pending Export' and the Account Type set as 'Source Account'. After the report has been generated the Export as Balancing Journal or Tag as Exported button will be available.
These two options are explained below:
1. Export as balancing journal (default) - this will do three things:
- Change the transaction from 'Pending Export' to 'Exported'
- Create a balancing journal and post it to the system tagged as 'Balancing'
- Use the API connection to post the journal to the client's accounting system.
2. Mark as exported - this will do two things:
- Change transaction from "Pending Export" to 'Exported'
- Create a balancing journal and post it to the system tagged as 'Balancing'
Note: A user will manually need to enter these journals into the client's accounting system.
Note: You can also export a balancing journal directly from the Journals tab by clicking on the Prepare a Balancing Journal button. This will take you to the Reports section shown above.
Note: It is advisable to do a fresh import from the source system after the balancing journal has been processed because the 'tagged' journals will be excluded from the calculation of the trial balance in future reports to prevent any doubling up of information.
Warning: Depending on the setup of your client's accounting system, the exported journal may be sitting in their file as a 'draft journal' and, therefore, it will first need to be posted in the accounting system before it will be imported back into Active Ledger.
Undoing exported balancing journals
If you need to undo a previously committed balancing journal simply navigate to the Journals tab, select the relevant journal and select Undo Balancing Journal. This will remove the balancing journal, remove it from the client file (if it was posted there), and change the tag of the associated journals back to 'Pending Export'.
Searching
To search through the generated report start typing in the search field as demonstrated below. This is a live search field so pressing enter is not required.
For more information on filtering and formatting generated reports see the knowledge article: Datasets - filtering and formatting within Active Ledger.
Right-click menu
To access the right-click menu, use your mouse to right-click anywhere on the generated report to bring up the following menu options:
Note: Exporting via the right-click menu DOES NOT update the status of the journal, this needs to be done using the 'Exporting journals tagged 'Pending Export'' method described above.