My statements look wrong
A diagnostic path for the most common causes of a Balance Sheet or Profit & Loss that does not make sense — in the order that finds them fastest.
How-toFor Bookkeepers, Business owners, Firm staff
First, rule out the easy answers
The ledger cannot be arithmetically out of balance — unbalanced entries are refused at posting. So a statement that looks wrong is a classification, completeness, or comparison problem, and those have a short list of causes.
- Check the scope. A report run in Consolidated scope will not match one run for a single entity.
- Check the date range. A Balance Sheet is as of a date; a Profit & Loss is for a period.
- Check whether anything posted since you last looked — the audit trail's event log answers this precisely.
- Check that the period is closed. An open period is still moving.
The diagnostic path
| Symptom | Most likely cause | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Cash is wrong | The account is not reconciled, or something posted after the reconciliation. | Reconcile the account through the statement date. |
| A/R does not match the aging | A payment is recorded but unapplied, or something posted directly to the control account. | Unapplied cash first, then the general ledger report for the control account. |
| A/P does not match the aging | Same causes on the payables side, or a payment coded to expense instead of matched to the bill. | The general ledger report for A/P, sorted by amount. |
| An expense looks far too high | A bill was recorded and its payment was also coded to the expense account. | The account's general ledger report — look for the same amount twice. |
| An expense looks too low | Bills not yet entered, or an accrual not posted. | The exceptions queue and the intake list. |
| Gross margin moved unexpectedly | An account numbered into the wrong range, so it sits above or below the wrong line. | The chart of accounts, checking type and number. |
| Equity looks wrong | Owner draws coded as an expense, or an opening balance posted on the wrong side. | The general ledger report for the equity accounts. |
| A balance is negative that should not be | A reversal without a replacement, or a duplicate reversal. | The account's activity, filtered to the period the sign changed. |
Tracing it to an entry
- 1
Open the general ledger report for the suspect account.
- 2
Narrow the date range until the balance moves unexpectedly.
Halving the range each time finds it in a handful of steps.
- 3
Sort by amount.
A single large error is far easier to spot by size than by reading chronologically.
- 4
Open the entry and check its provenance.
Manual, document, bank feed, API, or AI — this usually explains the mistake immediately.
- 5
Correct by reversal, and say why in the memo.
Was this useful?