When a General Ledger imbalance exists, in which overall debits and credits do not agree, the system will disallow a year end close until the variance is resolved.
A G/L imbalance will not affect a month end close because the monthly closes apply to Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable. A variance will show as a flashing red numeral to the left of the total debits and credits. A positive value indicates that debits exceed credits and a negative value indicates that credits exceed debits.
Why the general ledger becomes out of balance
There are uncommon circumstances in which the General Ledger will show unequal debits and credits. This does not impact overall system integrity and can be rectified with the assistance of DDI Customer Support. Corrective measures depend on the reason for the difference:
- Re-indexing the General Ledger to settle an internal difference
- Making a journal entry to settle a difference between 2 or more branches
- Specifying an inter-branch exchange account on the G/L Control Table
- Programming intervention to fix balances associated with missing or partial G/L accounts
If a you see a difference
- Ensure that the entire G/L is selected when first evaluating a difference. If a single G/L suffix is selected in a multi-branch organization, there may be a difference which is exactly offset by the same value when another G/L suffix is selected. The can happen if:
- Journal entries are made to accounts with different suffixes.
- An inter-branch exchange account is missing from the G/L Control Table.
- Narrow the difference down to a specific accounting period, branch and source code. It is also helpful to know if a source code specific amount is changing every month.
Other Reasons for G/L Imbalances
- A G/L Reindex was attempted while other users were actively posting transactions.
- A G/L Year End Close was attempted while other users were actively posting transactions.
- Required G/L Control Table settings are missing or not updated. Inform Versions 11 and 17 require additional accounts to be added for optimal system performance.
- A Miscellaneous Charge Code with history was deleted.
- An item with alternative Product Line G/L specifications was deleted.
- A partial G/L account was created in error during Accounts Payable invoice entry. This situation may be corrected by a programmer.
- A system change was made to a process or record. Certain files are internally mapped to specific accounts and require a re-index to recalculate transactions and account balances.
- A change was made to the calculation of net prices in Sales Order Entry. The value in File > Company > Master: Pricing & Costing, Default Net Price Decimal Places in S/O Entry should remain set to 4. Reducing the number of decimal places may cause the Sales Journal to go out of balance
Corrective measures
DDi’s technician will often try to resolve an imbalance with a process called a General Ledger Re-Index. Note that a re-index can cause balance changes based on the current system settings for G/L posting. Therefore DDi will advise you to capture a full year of G/L account balances to use before and after the re-index.
When a programmer is needed to repair an imbalance, the re-index process will also be required. For more information on re-indexing, refer to General ledger reindexing.