accounting_report/Reports/STATUTORY/FIN_003_trial_balance.md

FIN-003 Trial Balance

1 Objective

Provide a summarized trial balance listing opening balance, debit, credit and closing balance amounts for all general ledger accounts over a selected date range.

The report is used for:

• accounting control;
• statutory financial reporting preparation;
• reconciliation between the general ledger and financial statements;
• audit review;
• period-end and year-end closing analysis.

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2 Users

• accounting department;
• finance department;
• auditors;
• financial controlling.

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3 Frequency

• monthly closing;
• quarterly closing;
• year-end closing;
• ad hoc audit requests.

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4 Parameters

Required parameters:

• date_from
• date_to

Optional parameters:

• currency
• include_zero_accounts

Execution scope:

• the report is limited to the current entity;
• entity selection is not a report parameter;
• multi-entity and consolidation reporting are out of scope and should be handled by a dedicated consolidation report.

Balance period:

• date_from defaults to the first day of the current fiscal year;
• date_to defaults to today's date;
• opening balances are calculated as of the day before date_from;
• period movements are calculated from date_from to date_to;
• closing balances are calculated as opening balances plus period movements.

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5 Filters

• posting date between date_from and date_to;
• all general ledger accounts;
• currency, if the report is generated for a selected currency;
• include or exclude zero-balance accounts based on include_zero_accounts.

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6 Sorting

Default sorting:

1. account
2. transaction_currency

The report should follow account order and should not use the statutory balance sheet or profit and loss hierarchy as its primary sorting structure.

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7 Grouping

Default grouping:

• account
• transaction_currency

Totals should be displayed by:

• account;
• transaction currency;
• base currency;
• report total.

Presentation requirements:

• each general ledger account should be displayed once per transaction currency;
• debit, credit and balance columns should be displayed side by side;
• opening balance columns are mandatory;
• zero-balance accounts should be controlled by include_zero_accounts;
• accounts with movements in the selected period should be displayed even when their closing balance is zero;
• inactive accounts should be displayed when they have movements in the selected period;
• balance sheet and profit and loss account classification may be shown as informational attributes when available.
• drill-down should be available from each account and transaction currency balance to the underlying general ledger movements, accounting documents and source documents when available.

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8 Output Structure

Required columns:

Column	Description
account	General ledger account code
account_name	General ledger account name
account_type	Account classification, such as asset, liability, equity, revenue or expense
posting_status	Posting status scope included in trial balance amounts, when exposed by the ERP
transaction_currency	Original transaction currency
base_currency	Functional or company base currency
opening_balance_transaction_currency	Opening balance in transaction currency as of the day before date_from
debit_transaction_currency	Debit period movement in transaction currency
credit_transaction_currency	Credit period movement in transaction currency
closing_balance_transaction_currency	Closing balance in transaction currency
opening_balance_base_currency	Opening balance in base currency as of the day before date_from
debit_base_currency	Debit period movement in base currency
credit_base_currency	Credit period movement in base currency
closing_balance_base_currency	Closing balance in base currency

Amount sign convention for this report:

• debit movements are displayed as positive amounts;
• credit movements are displayed as negative amounts;
• opening and closing balances are displayed using the debit-positive and credit-negative convention;
• closing balance equals opening balance plus debit movements plus credit movements.

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9 Estimated volume

Medium.

The report is a summarized accounting control report. It should contain one summarized line per account and transaction currency, rather than individual journal entry lines.

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10 Export formats

• PDF
• CSV
• XLSX

CSV and XLSX are primary review and reconciliation formats. PDF is used for audit and closing documentation.

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11 Controls / reconciliation rules

• Total debit movements plus total credit movements should reconcile in base currency for the selected date range.
• Closing balances should reconcile with the general ledger for the same current entity and selected date range.
• Balance sheet account totals should reconcile with FIN-001 Comparative Balance Sheet as of date_to when the same account mapping is used.
• Profit and loss account totals should reconcile with FIN-002 Comparative Profit and Loss Statement up to date_to when the same account mapping is used.
• Accounts excluded by include_zero_accounts = false should not change report totals.
• The account list should include all active general ledger accounts with a balance or movements in the selected period.
• The account list should include inactive general ledger accounts when they have movements in the selected period.
• Accounts with zero closing balance should still be displayed when they have debit or credit movements in the selected period.
• Drill-down from an account balance should reconcile to GL-001 General Ledger for the same current entity, account, currency and selected date range.

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12 Open questions

• Which ERP source will define account type and financial statement classification? This information is currently unknown.
• Should posting_status be displayed in the first implementation? This depends on the target ERP capabilities.