Period balances
The stored month-by-month opening, movement and closing of one ledger, used as a cross-check, with the action to rebuild it for the whole set of books.
Period balances
For one ledger, the opening balance, debits, credits and closing balance of each month (each accounting period), as the app keeps them stored. The other reports don't use these stored figures; they work from the vouchers directly. That makes this screen a cross-check: if a month here disagrees with the Ledger report, the stored figures need a rebuild.
Where to find it
Open Accounting > Reports in the sidebar and choose the Period balances tab. You need the View permission on Reports and on Books, as described on the Ledger report, and the View permission on Chart of Accounts to pick a ledger. The Books switcher at the top right chooses the books.
What you see
Filters across the top:
- Ledger: search the books' active ledgers by code or name.
- Fiscal year: starts on the year that holds today. All years shows every year.
Until you pick a ledger the page shows "Pick a ledger" and "Shows the cached opening, movement and closing per month. Rebuild recomputes the cache for every ledger from the posted vouchers."
The table has one row per month:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Period | The month and year, with "FY <name> · P<nn> · <from> to <to>" underneath. |
| Opening Dr / Opening Cr | The balance at the start of the month. |
| Debit / Credit | The month's postings. |
| Closing Dr / Closing Cr | The balance at the end of the month. |
With no rows the table reads "No cached rows: nothing has been posted to this ledger in this year, or the cache needs a rebuild." (without "in this year" when All years is chosen).
What you can do
Rebuild balances
Recalculates the stored monthly figures for every ledger and every fiscal year of the chosen books. The confirmation "Rebuild period balances?" reads: "Recomputes the monthly cache for every ledger and fiscal year of <books> from the posted vouchers. Reports do not depend on it; use this after a data fix." Click Rebuild to go ahead, or Cancel.
- Who: anyone with the Edit permission on Books. In the default roles that is the Administrator and the Finance Lead. Without it the button isn't shown.
- What happens next: "Rebuilt <n> rows for <n> ledgers across <n> year(s)." The table refreshes.
Export CSV
Downloads the rows with the columns Fiscal year, Period, From, To, Opening debit, Opening credit, Period debit, Period credit, Closing debit and Closing credit.
- When it's greyed out: until a ledger's rows have loaded.
Things to know
- When the stored figures refresh by themselves. Posting or reversing a voucher, and closing or reopening a fiscal year, update the affected ledgers straight away.
- Opening balances don't refresh them. After you change the year's Opening balances, the opening figures here can lag behind until you click Rebuild balances.
- Nothing else depends on this screen. The ledger report, trial balance and statements always work from the vouchers, so a stale figure here never changes a report.
Related
Related
- Ledger reportScreen
The ledger of one account between two dates: opening balance, every posting with a running balance, and closing balance, with CSV export.
- Trial balanceScreen
Opening, period debit and credit and closing per ledger or per group for a fiscal-year range, on a grid you can sort, resize and filter by column, with the report's totals in the footer and CSV export.
- Fiscal yearsScreen
The fiscal years of a set of books with their 12 monthly periods: lock or unlock a month, open the next year, and close or reopen a year at year end.
- Opening balancesScreen
The balances brought forward into a fiscal year, one amount and side per ledger, typed in one table and saved as a whole, with running debit and credit totals.
- Fiscal years, periods, locks, opening balances and the year-end closeConcept
Each set of books runs in fiscal years of twelve monthly periods; a voucher can post only into an open year and an unlocked period, opening balances carry each ledger's balance into a year, the year-end close moves income and expense into Profit & Loss Account by a closing journal and writes the next year's openings, and a monthly balance cache is kept as a cross-check.
- Review the month and lock the periodHow-to
At month end, read the day book for the month, check that the trial balance is balanced, check key ledgers such as the bank, cross-check the period balances, and then lock the month on the books' Fiscal years tab so nothing more posts into it.