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Trial Balance

Open in Nocthink

Module: Accounting · URL: /accounting/trial-balance · Responsible role: Accounting Staff · Also used by: F.A.T Manager (full), Owner/Director (full); Finance Staff / Finance Manager (read-only)

Trial Balance — ledger accounts from 11000 Cash and bank down to 51000 Program costs with dollar total debit, total credit, debit and credit balance and a Balance/Zero check, scoped to All projects; 11101 JPMorgan Chase carries a $1,468,238.49 debit balance, 31000 net assets $713,900.00 and 41010 restricted grant income $862,161.54 on the credit side

Screenshot: Sarah Hall (Finance Manager, also holds the F.A.T Manager role), Nocthink Demo Institute demo data. The footer card with the totals is below the fold; it reads $2,763,451.54 on both sides and Balanced.

Why I use this page

I use the Trial Balance to prove the books balance before I hand anything to the F.A.T Manager. Every account in the chart of accounts is listed with its posted debits and credits, and the footer tells me in one word whether total debit balances equal total credit balances. I open it after a batch of postings, before every period close, and whenever a financial statement looks off and I need to see which account carries the odd balance.

What's on the screen

  • Header — the title Trial Balance and a short description. There are no action buttons; the page is read-only.
  • Toolbar (left to right):
    • Type filter — checkboxes for Asset, Liability, Equity, Income, Expense.
    • Check filter — checkboxes for Balance (account has a non-zero balance) and Zero (debits and credits net to nothing, or no activity).
    • Project dropdown — All projects by default, or one project from the Project module.
    • A sort-direction toggle button.
    • Search accounts… on the right — matches the account name.
  • Table columns:
    • Account — account code (monospace) followed by the account name on the same line (long names are cut short with "…"); this column stays frozen when the figures scroll sideways.
    • Type — the account type pill.
    • Total Debit / Total Credit — the sum of debit and credit lines on that account from posted journals.
    • Debit Balance / Credit Balance — the net of the two; only one side is ever non-zero.
    • Check — Balance or Zero.
  • Footer card (below the table) — Total debit balance, Total credit balance, and a pill that reads Balanced or Unbalanced (the latter in red).

The table shows up to 200 accounts on one page so the statement is never split.

How I …

How I check that the books balance

  1. Open Accounting → Control & Reports → Trial Balance.
  2. Leave the project dropdown on All projects and clear any Type / Check filters.
  3. Scroll to the footer card and read the pill. Balanced means total debit balances equal total credit balances to the cent.
  4. If it reads Unbalanced, compare the two footer totals, then go to Journal Entries to find the posted journal that caused it (a correctly posted double-entry journal cannot unbalance the TB, so look for data imported or edited outside the normal flow and raise it with the F.A.T Manager).

How I review only the accounts that carry a balance

  1. Open the Check filter and tick Balance.
  2. Optionally open Type and tick, say, Expense to review spend accounts only.
  3. Read down Debit Balance / Credit Balance. An Asset or Expense account sitting on the credit side (or an Income/Liability account on the debit side) is worth a second look in the General Ledger.

How I produce a trial balance for one project

  1. Open the project dropdown and pick the project.
  2. The table reloads with only lines whose fund belongs to that project — funds linked to the project directly, to one of its project funds (grants), or to a matching fund code.
  3. Check the footer. A project-level TB can legitimately read Unbalanced if a journal mixes lines from this project's fund with lines that have no fund or another fund (only the in-scope lines are counted).
  4. Switch back to All projects when done.

How I find a specific account

  1. Type part of the account name into Search accounts… (for example Payroll).
  2. The search matches the name, not the code; to find by code, scroll — rows are ordered by account code.

Access & permissions

  • The menu sits under Accounting → Control & Reports and needs accounting.view in the sidebar and route guard.
  • The API (GET /accounting/trial-balance) uses the accounting gate: Owner/Director, or a user with accounting authority (accounting.approve, or the accounting-staff / fat-manager role).
  • Nobody can change data on this page; all fixes happen through journals.
  • Finance Staff and Finance Manager are read-only here: their seeded roles include accounting.view, and the server lets finance authority with accounting.view read the books. They can't create, change or post anything on this page.

Caveats

  • Only journals with status Posted are counted. Drafts, journals waiting in Journal Control, and AI drafts in the AI Workbench do not appear until they are posted.
  • There is no date filter: the figures are cumulative from the first posted journal to today. It is not an "as of month-end" trial balance; for that I need to wait until the period is closed and nothing later has been posted, or use the statement pages.
  • Amounts are shown in the organisation's base currency (the demo tenant uses USD); journals in other currencies are already converted at posting.
  • Zero in the Check column covers both "never used" and "debits equal credits" accounts.
  • The project filter works through fund links. Lines without a fund never show in a project-scoped view.

Limitations

  • No export (Excel/PDF) and no print layout on this page.
  • No as-of-date or date-range selector, and no comparison to a prior period.
  • Rows are not clickable; to drill into an account I go to the General Ledger or Chart of Accounts.
  • Search matches the account name only, not the code.