Know how to solve your balance sheet when it’s run out of balance in QuickBooks Desktop.
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Schedule a MeetingYour total assets must match your total liabilities on your Balance Sheet. If they are unable to match, we can help you to find and you can easily understand how to fix it.
Important: Take a backup of your file before you start to edit any transactions.
Question: I am trying to run a balance sheet for the prior month and it says my balance sheet is out of balance this has been happening a lot lately I don’t want to keep doing a rebuild of the data every time.
QuickBooks Query Solution :
Balance Sheet can be of cash basis, accrual basis or even both. One of the common problems faced by the users is balance sheet running out of balance. When the balance sheet gets unbalanced the sum of the total assets is not equal to the sum of total liabilities and total equities. It is explained in formula (A<> L + E).
Read More: QuickBooks Messed up Balance
Possible Reasons for Unbalanced Balanced Sheet
Usually the balance sheet runs out of balance due to three major causes. They are as follows:
- The data file might be corrupt or damaged.
- Incompatible linked transactions have been entered.
- In case multi-currency is used in your business.
Step 1: Run the report in accrual basis
If you are not already, start the report in accrual basis.
- a) From the Reports menu, find Company & Financial and then Balance Sheet Summary.
- b) Select Customize Report.
- c) On the Display tab, select Accrual under Report Basis.
- d) Select OK.
If your balance sheet is run out of balance in accrual basis in QuickBooks, you should restore your company file 1st. If it is out of balance in cash basis only, or if it is still out of balance after a rebuild, continue to step – b.
Take a Note: Take a note whether your balance sheet is out of balance in accrual only basis, or both cash and accrual basis. You will need this for later steps.
Step 2: Find the date when your balance sheet went out of balance in QuickBooks
To find the transaction or transactions triggering the problem, find the date when this report went out of balance.
- a) Go to the Reports menu and choose Company & Financials and then Balance Sheet Summary.
- b) Choose Customize Report.
- c) On the Display tab, from the Dates ▼ dropdown, select All.
- d) Go to the Report Basis section. If your balance sheet is out of balance in accrual only, select Accrual. Otherwise, select Cash.
- e) In the Columns section, from the Display columns by ▼ dropdown, select Year.
- f) Select OK.
- g) Compare your Total Assets to Total Liabilities & Equity. Find when your balance sheet goes out of balance.
Once you find the year, follow the same steps to narrow down the exact date.
- a) Repeat steps – a through – g above. This time, from the Display columns by ▼ dropdown, select Month.
- b) After you find the month, follow steps 1 through 6 again. Now, select Week.
- c) And finally, once you find the week, repeat the steps again. This time select Day.
- d) Now that you have the date your report went out of balance, continue to step – c.
Step 3: Find the transactions that are making your balance sheet out of balance
Start a Custom Transaction Detail report for the date you noted.
- a) Go to the Reports menu and select Custom Report and then Transaction Detail.
- b) On the Modify Report window, look for the Report Date Range section. Enter the date the report went out of balance in the From and to fields.
- c) Go to the Report Basis section. If your balance sheet is out of balance in accrual only, select Accrual. Otherwise, select Cash.
- d) In the Columns section, unchecked Account, Split, Clr, and Class. Select Amount. This will make the report easier to read. Select the Paid Amount column.
- e) Select OK.
- f) The ending balance in the Paid Amount column should equal the amount that is out of balance. Look through the report to find the transaction or transactions that add up to this amount.
If you unable to get the transactions, continue to Advanced troubleshooting for Balance Sheet issues.
Step 4: Re-date the transactions
- a) Once you get the transaction or transactions that affecting the problem, modify the dates on them. Make a note of their current dates. Then, edit the date on each transaction to a day 20 years in the future.
- b) Save each transaction.
- c) Restore the report, if you found the correct transactions, the Paid Amount column will now be zero.
- d) Locate the transactions you dated into the future and date them back to their original date.
Note: This re-dating step re-links the transactions and can repair them.
If this doesn’t work, proceed to the next step.
Step 5: Delete and reenter the transactions
If modifying the dates on the transaction or transactions doesn’t fix the trouble, then you should delete and reenter them.
If your balance sheet is still out of balance after, use Advanced troubleshooting for Balance Sheet issues.
Old Method But Works: How to Resolve the Issue?
Scenario 1: When the Balance Sheet gets unbalanced by damage in the Data file.
The scenario indicates that there is some damage in the transaction. Follow the below mentioned steps to fix the issue:
- Close QuickBooks program and restart again
- Create a Qbwin.log file
- Attempt running the basic data damage tools (Resort, Rebuild, Verify, Qbwin.log) that fixes list or transaction damage that is affecting the reports.
- In case the balance sheet is still out o balance implement the automatic tools like Portable Company File, QuickBooks File Doctor, and Automatic Data Recovery.
- Follow the second step in case your Balance Sheet is unbalanced resolve the damaged transactions entered.
Scenario 2: When entered transactions creates problem.
Generally these transactions leads in cash basis balance sheet unbalanced. Follow the below mentioned steps to fix the issue. It is recommended to create a back up of the organizational file before performing the steps below.
- Discount on an invoice and inventory return.
- Original inventory transactions.
- Discount that counter balance sheet account.
- Discount that is entered at customer level and applied at the job level.
- Journal entry associated with credit memo.
Scenario 3: In case you have damaged data that the Automatic tools fail to fix.
In case you have some data damage that the usual data damage troubleshooting fail to fix. The following solutions are quite difficult but save time by following further steps for searching general data damage.
- The balance sheet is unbalanced on Accrual and Cash bases.
- Balance Sheet summary is unbalanced or the detail of the BS is balanced or vice versa.
- In case one column is unbalanced and other column setting is balanced.
- The accrual Balance Sheet is in balance for Dates = All Dates, but unbalanced because of other date range.
- When the company data is condensed the balance sheet is unbalanced and the journal entries display the amounts without associated accounts.
- The accrual Balance Sheet is unbalanced because cash BS is in balance.
In case the steps suggested by Intuit fail to resolve the Balance Sheet out of Balance then you must contact QuickBooks customer helpdesk. The efficient customer support team is approachable through toll free phone number, email support and live chat as well. They resolve your issue instantly. The QuickBooks team is 24*7 active and accord excellent assistance.
