How to Fix Sage 50 Balance Sheet Out of Balance?

If your Sage 50 balance sheet is out of balance, it means that the total assets do not equal the total liabilities and equity. This can happen due to various reasons such as data entry errors, incorrect account balances, or transactions entered in the wrong period. To fix this issue, you will need to identify the cause of the out-of-balance condition.

Like other accounting software, Sage 50 is also prone to some errors or issues and the Sage 50 balance sheet out of balance is one such issue that doesn’t allow the application to match the ledgers due to unwanted errors. Every organization needs to maintain its balance sheet; it is nothing but a document that captures all the liabilities, assets, date-wise profits and losses. Sage users can easily handle such activities using software tools like Sage 50 but sometimes it also landed up some issues. Today in this article, we will come to know how easily you can fix Sage 50 balance sheets out of balance.

For accurate analysis and prediction of your company’s profit and loss, it is of utmost importance for your balance sheets to be error-free. However, since large amount of data is involved while creating a balance sheet accounting errors do occur which, if not corrected timely, can lead to an incorrect prediction of your company’s financial health.

Reason Behind Sage 50 Balance Sheet Out of Balance

Before you move troubleshoot steps on how to fix Sage 50 balance sheets out of balance. Let’s check out few causes that lead to this Sage error:

• Damaged transactions
• Account types have been changed
• An account balance should be zero
• Damaged custom report
• Subsidiary companies are out of balance
• General Ledger Trial Balance out of balance is being filtered for specific accounts or account segments
• A custom report got missing general ledger account

Read More-: Sage Balance Sheet not Balancing

Different Sage 50 Balance Sheet Out of Balance

Here are some of the issues that might occur while preparing a balance sheet on Sage 50 Accounting software:

• Retained Earnings account balance is incorrect
• Accounts have different balance on the last day of last fiscal year and first day of current fiscal year, with no transaction
• Accounts did not close to the retained earnings account
• Retained Earnings account amount have been fragmented to another account.

Step to Fix Sage 50 Balance Sheet Out of Balance

General Ledger Trial Balance or Balance Sheet is out of balance

Before you start, you need to always create a backup of your data before going on with advanced solutions. If required, opt for the assistance of a qualified Sage business partner, network administrator, or Sage customer support analyst.

Part 1: Run the Chart of Accounts/Journal Synchronization test (most common fix)

Run Chart of Accounts/Journal Synchronization test by following the below steps:

• Make sure all other users log out of the company.
• Now Change your accounting period to Period 1.
• Next click on Help, Support Utilities, and then select Integrity Check.
• Click Backup.
• Give the backup a name, select where you would like to save it.
•  click  on Save.
• Click OK within the box that tells you the size of the backup.
• Click Reindex Files box, from the Reindex File List select Chart.
• Now  click OK.
• Once  the test is complete, select Help, Support Utilities, and Integrity Check.
• Click on Continue, Reindex Files box, from the Reindex File List.
•  select Jrnl Header
• Now  click OK.
• Once  the test is completed, select Help, Support Utilities, and Integrity Check.
• Click on Continue, Reindex Files box, from the Reindex File List select Jrnl Rows
•  Now  click on OK.
• Once  the test is completed, click on Help, Support Utilities, and Integrity Check.
• Click on  Continue, Chart of Accounts/Journal box under the Data Synchronization Tests section, and then click OK.
  • You might receive one or more messages stating that a synchronization error was corrected. 
  • Click OK every time the message is displayed.
  • Once the test concludes, lauch the standard Balance Sheet to verify if it is in balance.
  • Launch the General Ledger Trial Balance in order to verify the total debits matches the total credits. In case they do not, go  to the next step.
• Click on Help
• Click on Support Utilities
• Click on Integrity Check.
• Now click on Continue.
• Click select Journal Balances box.
• Finally click OK.
• CLick on Help
• Click on Support Utilities.
• Click on Integrity Check.
• Now Select Continue.
•  Click on the G/L Balances box.
• Now  click OK.
  • Note: The aforementioned test will forcibly put the system back into balance by moving the offset into the Equity Retained-Earnings account. In case the balance does not belong in Retained-Earnings, it will be relocated within the  general journal entry.
• Once the tests have completed, change back to your current accounting period.
• Finally, Verify if your problem has been resolved.

Part 2: Improperly Customized or Damaged Report

• In case  you are utilizing a customized Trial Balance report or Balance Sheet report, you need to run the standard version of the report
• In case  the custom version is out of balance,you need to delete the customized report and recreate it.
•  Utilize the standard report to start, or correct the custom report

Part 3: Damaged Transaction(s)

• Start by clicking on Reports & Forms.
• Then click select General Ledger.
• Now click on General Ledger report.
• Next click on Options.
• Change Time Frame to All.
• Finally, Click OK.
• In case of  the error At least one damaged transaction has been found in account [ID] in the period beginning [date]… occurs.

Part 4: Consolidated Company is Out of Balance

• Start by Launching one of the subsidiary companies.
• Next Click on Select Reports & Forms. 
• Now select General Ledger.
• Next Double-click General Ledger Trial Balance and then scroll to the bottom.
• Do debits equal credits?
  • If they do not, you need to follow steps on: How do I run the Chart of Accounts Journal Synchronization test?
  • If they match, continue to Step 5
• NowRepeat steps 1-4 for all subsidiary companies until all trial balances are in balance.
• Reconsolidate the consolidated company. 
• Finally, Verify that the consolidated company is in balance.

Also Read: How to Enter Opening Balances in Sage 50

Final Words!

After applying all the solutions provided-above hope you’re easily able to fix Sage 50 balance sheets out of balance. In case, still your balance sheet is not at par then you can try to reboot your system and then once again attempt to test the integrity or perform the same troubleshooting steps to get rid of this error.

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)