Error: "Warning - Accounts do not balance to Zero" when posting transactions in General Ledger

This support note applies to:

AO Classic General Ledger (AU)
AO Classic (NZ)

Article ID: 24489

This warning message may appear in red writing on the General Ledger front screen, after you post a batch of transactions and may relate to any one of the following reasons:

Editing a Posted transaction, and changing the Account number that has a different GST type allocation;
Editing a large batch of transactions;
Changing the GST allocation for a transaction within a batch;
Editing a Split transaction;
Deleting a batch of transactions.

There may be other reasons that a ledger can go out of balance that are not listed above.

You can recalculate balances to correct the issue. If this doesn't work, you can also run a Data Integrity Report to establish which batch is out of balance, then correct accordingly.

To recalculate balances

From within the client's general ledger, follow the menu path File > Housekeeping > Recalculate Ledger Current Year Balances.
Click Yes. A processing box displays the progress, followed by a message indicating the number of accounts recalculated.
Click OK.

If the warning message still appears on the front screen of the ledger after performing the procedure above, then a transaction in a batch may be corrupt and the recalculation has now identified the transaction

If recalculating the ledger balances does not resolve the issue, run the Data Integrity Report to identify the batch of transactions that is out of balance.

To view the Data Integrity Report

From within the client's general ledger, follow the menu path File > Housekeeping > Data Integrity Report. The GL Data Integrity Report window is displayed.
Click Preview. The report will display the version of General Ledger, the location of the client ledger data directory, and which batch and month is out of balance.

The report may also contain additional information such as transactions in the wrong period or year.
Take note of the affected batch and click Close, then click Close again to exit the GL Data Integrity Report wizard.

Now that you've identified which batch is causing the out of balance, there are three options to rectify the issue:

1. if possible, Editing a batch of posted general ledger transactions to correct the issue.
2. delete the out of balance batch via the menu path File > Housekeeping > Delete / Restore a batch of Transactions and selecting the individual batch to delete from the list. You can then enter a new batch and re-key the transactions.
3. if there are a number of transactions, you can enter a one-sided journal entry to force the batch into balance.

Before editing any batches, we strongly recommend performing a back up of the ledger.

MYOB INTERNAL STAFF ONLY

To enter a one-sided entry, a standard journal entry is created, then one side of the journal is deleted.

Enter the journal to the account you want to correct. The other side of the journal is usually posted to the Suspense account, which is later deleted.

The one sided journal entry is achieved by deleting one side of the journal via the FoxPro command window.

As you are editing live data, please ensure the ledger data is backed up

From within your client's general ledger, click the General Ledger menu and select Transaction Entry.
Click OK to the Transaction Entry Options window to open the Transaction Entry window.
When entering the journal, enter one side to the account you want to fix and enter the other side of the journal to the Suspense account.

If you are unsure of the account you want to fix, enter that side of the journal to the suspense account as well. The client can determine which account this needs to be assigned to at a later date.
Click OK and post the transactions.
View the Data Integrity Report generated in the first procedure to find the batch that is out of balance.
From the front Trial Balance screen of the ledger, double-click on the suspense account. This will open a dialogue box named Transaction Enquiry”
Select the transaction to be deleted.
Select File > Housekeeping > FoxPro command window.
In the command window type:

sele gl_trn [Enter]
browse for trn_batch=??? [Enter] (where ??? is the one sided journal entry batch)

The Gl_Trn window appears.
Select the Suspense account transaction line for the journal entered at step 3, then press CTRL + T. on the keyboard. A black mark appears to the left of this record to indicate that the record is to be deleted.
Select the other transaction that was entered at step 3 and scroll to the Trn_Batch column. Enter the batch number obtained at step 5. The Trn_Batch column updates.
Press ESC to return to the Command window.
Close the Command window.
Follow the menu path File > Housekeeping > Recalculate Ledger Current Year Balances. The message "Are you sure you want to recalculate current year balances now?" appears.
Click Yes and then click OK once the procedure completes.