A Balance Sheet report gives you a financial snapshot of your company as of a specific date. It calculates how much your business is worth (your business's equity) by subtracting all the money your company owes (liabilities) from everything it owns (assets):
Assets - Liabilities = Equity
Note: The total for equity includes your company's net income for the fiscal year to date.
In this article, you'll learn how to:
- How to run a Balance Sheet report
- The differences between a Balance Sheet report and other reports
- How to compare your Balance Sheet report and A/R Aging Summary or A/R Aging Detail reports
- How to compare the Balance Sheet report to different time periods
- Why the Balance Sheet report might not show a correct balance
- Why the Balance Sheet report may not match the account history
Run a Balance Sheet report
- Go to Reports (Take me there).
- Select Balance Sheet.
Tip: To see a higher-level summary, run the Balance Sheet Summary report instead.
Differences between a Balance Sheet report and other reports
You may notice that your Balance Sheet report doesn't match your other reports even after making sure that all the filters are the same. There are a few reasons why this occurs, such as:
- Your Balance Sheet report is a cumulative report that carries a beginning balance.
- In other reports, the date range you set only applies to net income and the specific account you select within the report. (Example: If you have CA $50 of sales tax in March and CA $60 in April, the Balance Sheet will show CA $110 for the sales tax liability account).
- If the date range for the report is April, it will still show the cumulative total of CA $110. However, if you select CA $110, its transaction detail report shows a beginning balance of CA $50 and then a CA $60 transaction for April.
- In addition, the Sales by Product/Service report is limited to the date range you set. If you set the report date for April, then it will truly reflect only April and show the CA $60 only.
Compare your Balance Sheet report and Accounts Receivable Aging Summary or Accounts Receivable Aging Detail reports
When comparing your Balance Sheet report (Last Year/Accrual) and your Accounts receivable aging summary or Accounts receivable aging detail reports, there are some things you should know, such as:
- When you compare these two reports, you must specify the correct Aging method on the Accounts receivable aging report.
- If you're running the Balance Sheet report for any date in the past, you must select Report period for the Aging method on your Accounts receivable aging reports in order for the Total Accounts Receivable to match on both the Balance Sheet and Accounts receivable aging report.
How to compare the Balance Sheet report to different time periods
You can customize your Balance Sheet report to show Year-over-Year columns.
- Go to Reports (Take me there).
- In the search bar, search for and open Balance Sheet Comparison.
- Select Customize.
- Under Rows/Columns, select the Change columns link, then select the appropriate checkbox to see the desired period.
- Select Run report.
Why the Balance Sheet report may not show a correct balance
The value of the assets should always equal the combined value of the liabilities and equity (Equity = Assets - Liabilities). If your balance sheet isn't balancing correctly, you can troubleshoot the issue:
- Select each account on the report to see the transactions related to the balance of each account.
- You can start running the date range down by starting from year to date (YTD), and narrowing it down each month, until you have the date range narrowed to the day that the balance sheet goes off.
- From there, you can start to figure out what transaction is causing the balance sheet to be off and resolve the issue.
Why the Balance Sheet report may not match the account history
If your company's fiscal year is different from the calendar year, the amounts on both the report and the account history may not match because the balance sheet is run on a calendar year. You can resolve this issue by doing one of the following:
Option 1: Change the date of the report to match your fiscal year
- Go to Reports (Take me there).
- In the search bar, search for and open the Balance Sheet report.
- Select Customize.
- Choose the appropriate Report period.
- Select Run report.
Option 2: Change your fiscal year on the company file
- Go to Settings ⚙, then select Account and settings.
- Select Advanced.
- In the Accounting section, select the edit ✏️ icon.
- From First month of income tax year dropdown, choose January.
- Select Save and Done.