General Ledger Summary — Complete User Guide — Two Accounts Web

Comprehensive guide for generating, analysing, and understanding the General Ledger Summary report — a complete view of opening balances, period movements, and closing balances for all accounts

Table of Contents

1. What Is the General Ledger Summary?
   • Purpose and Structure
   • P&L vs Balance Sheet Sections
2. Enabling from the Customize Menu
3. Field-by-Field Guide
   • Report Header Fields
4. Settings Configuration
   • Chart of Accounts
   • Suspense Account
5. Creating a General Ledger Summary Report
6. How the Report Is Calculated
   • Transaction Loading and Pre-Processing
   • Opening Balance Calculation
   • Total Debits and Total Credits
   • Net Movement Calculation
   • Closing Balance Calculation
   • P&L vs Balance Sheet Differences
   • Profit/Loss Row
7. Drill-Down Capabilities
8. Sample Data and Report Output
   • Sample Setup
   • General Ledger Summary Output
9. Common Issues and Solutions
10. Accounting Regulation Compliance

1. What Is the General Ledger Summary?

The General Ledger Summary report provides a complete overview of every account in your Chart of Accounts, showing opening balance, total debits, total credits, net movement, and closing balance for a specified period. It is one of the most fundamental accounting reports — often called a "Trial Balance with movement" — and serves as the primary tool for reviewing all financial activity in the business.

Unlike the Balance Sheet (which shows only BS accounts) or the Profit and Loss Statement (which shows only P&L accounts), the General Ledger Summary shows both sections in a single report with a consistent five-column layout.

1.1 Structure

The report shows every account in your Chart of Accounts, organized by the standard report hierarchy:

PROFIT AND LOSS SECTION
  Income Accounts
    Sales Revenue                   0       300,000        0   300,000        —
    Service Revenue                 0       100,000        0   100,000        —
  Expense Accounts
    Salary Expense                  0           0     60,000    (60,000)      —
    Rent Expense                    0           0     15,000    (15,000)      —
  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Profit/Loss for the Period                                 220,000

BALANCE SHEET SECTION
  Assets
    Cash at Bank              150,000    150,000    65,000     85,000    235,000
    Accounts Receivable       200,000    300,000   150,000    150,000    350,000
  Liabilities
    Accounts Payable          150,000     80,000   120,000     40,000    190,000
  Equity
    Capital Account           500,000          0         0          0    500,000
    Retained Earnings          80,000          0   220,000    220,000    300,000
  ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Total                                                             1,080,000

1.2 P&L vs Balance Sheet Sections

The report shows P&L accounts first, followed by Balance Sheet accounts. The key difference:

• Profit and Loss accounts have no opening or closing balance because they are temporary accounts that reset each period. The net movement IS the balance for the period. A credit movement (positive) means income/revenue; a debit movement (negative) means expense.
• Balance Sheet accounts have opening and closing balances because they carry forward across periods. An asset with a debit opening balance stays in the black; a liability with a credit opening balance stays in brackets (shown as credit).
• Profit/Loss for the Period — a special row between the P&L and BS sections showing the net profit or loss from all P&L activity. This figure links the P&L section to Retained Earnings in the BS section.

2. Enabling from the Customize Menu

The General Ledger Summary report is a standard report — it is always available under:

• Reports → General Ledger → General Ledger Summary

No toggle in Customize Menu is needed to enable it.

3. Field-by-Field Guide

3.1 Report Header Fields

Location: Reports → General Ledger → General Ledger Summary → New Report

4. Settings Configuration

4.1 Chart of Accounts

Location: Settings → Chart of Accounts

The General Ledger Summary report uses the same Chart of Accounts structure as the Balance Sheet and Profit and Loss Statement. The hierarchy of groups and accounts determines how the report is organised. Key points:

• P&L Groups — Income groups appear before Expense groups in the P&L section
• BS Groups — Assets, Liabilities, and Equity groups appear in the BS section
• Account Codes — If set on individual accounts, they can be shown in the report via the Account Codes field
• Inactive accounts — Inactive accounts are hidden even if Exclude Zero Balances is not checked

4.2 Suspense Account

Location: The Suspense account is a built-in system account under the Equity group (default "Uncategorized" bucket).

The Suspense account holds transactions that could not be matched to a proper account. In the General Ledger Summary:

• The Suspense row is automatically hidden if its balance is zero
• A non-zero Suspense balance indicates transactions that need attention — drill into the account to identify and correct them
• The Suspense account should always be zero in a properly maintained system

5. Creating a General Ledger Summary Report

1. Go to Reports → General Ledger → General Ledger Summary
2. Click New Report
3. Enter a Description (optional)
4. Enter the From Date (period start)
5. Enter the To Date (period end)
6. Optionally check Account Codes and Exclude Zero Balances
7. Click Save
8. The report generates showing the P&L section, Profit/Loss row, and BS section with the five-column layout

6. How the Report Is Calculated

6.1 Transaction Loading and Pre-Processing

When the General Ledger Summary is generated, the system first loads all General Ledger transactions and applies pre-processing steps to ensure accuracy:

1. Cost of Goods Sold Calculation — determines COGS based on inventory valuation method
2. Fixed Asset Disposal Entries — generates reversing entries for disposed assets
3. Intangible Asset Disposal Entries — same for disposed intangible assets
4. Realised Investment Gains/Losses — calculates gains or losses on investments
5. Foreign Exchange Revaluation — revalues foreign currency accounts for the period

All transactions with a date on or before the To Date are loaded. The From Date is used later to split between opening balance and period activity.

6.2 Opening Balance Calculation

Opening Balance = Sum of (base currency amount)
    for all transactions where:
    • The account is this account
    • The date is BEFORE the period start date
      OR the entry is an Opening Balance Entry (regardless of date)

The opening balance includes:

• All transactions posted before the period start date
• All Opening Balance Entries (which carry forward balances from prior periods or migrations)

For P&L accounts: The opening balance is always blank. P&L accounts are temporary accounts that start each period with a zero balance.

For Balance Sheet accounts: The opening balance shows the cumulative balance from all activity before the period start.

6.3 Total Debits and Total Credits

Total Debits = Sum of (base currency amount)
    for transactions where:
    • The account is this account
    • The date is ON or AFTER the period start date
    • It is NOT an Opening Balance Entry
    • The base currency amount is POSITIVE (debit entry)

Total Credits = Sum of (base currency amount × −1)
    for transactions where:
    • The account is this account
    • The date is ON or AFTER the period start date
    • It is NOT an Opening Balance Entry
    • The base currency amount is NEGATIVE (credit entry)

Debit entries (positive amounts) increase asset/expense accounts and decrease liability/income accounts. Credit entries (negative amounts, shown as positive after sign reversal) decrease asset/expense accounts and increase liability/income accounts.

6.4 Net Movement Calculation

Net Movement = Total Debits − Total Credits

A positive Net Movement means total debits exceeded total credits (net debit). A negative Net Movement means total credits exceeded total debits (net credit).

6.5 Closing Balance Calculation

Closing Balance = Opening Balance + Net Movement

This applies only to Balance Sheet accounts. P&L accounts have no closing balance because they reset each period.

6.6 P&L vs Balance Sheet Differences

6.7 Profit/Loss Row

A special bold row appears between the P&L and BS sections:

Profit/(Loss) for the Period = Sum of (base currency amount × −1)
    for all P&L account transactions where:
    • The date is on or after the period start date
    • The date is on or before the period end date

This shows the net profit (if positive) or loss (if negative) for the period. The sign is reversed because in the GL, income is stored as negative (credit) and expenses as positive (debit). After negation, income contributes positively and expenses contribute negatively, giving the net profit.

If the result is positive, it appears in the Debits column (representing a net loss in terms of debits exceeding credits for revenue accounts — actually this is convention-dependent). If negative, it appears in the Credits column (net profit).

7. Drill-Down Capabilities

The Total Debits, Total Credits, and Net Movement columns are clickable. Each cell opens a detailed transaction viewer showing the individual General Ledger transactions behind that figure.

Each drill-down view displays:

• Date — the transaction date
• Transaction — the document type and reference
• Account — the GL account name
• Customer/Supplier/Employee — counterparty information
• Description — transaction narrative
• Debit — debit amount (if applicable)
• Credit — credit amount (if applicable)
• Balance — running balance after each transaction

8. Sample Data and Report Output

8.1 Sample Setup

A trading company with the following opening balances as at 1 January 2026:

Note: The opening retained earnings of 80,000 represents the accumulated profit from prior periods. Opening balances must balance: 350,000 (assets) = 150,000 (liabilities) + 580,000 (equity).

Transactions During January 2026

8.2 General Ledger Summary Output

General Ledger Summary — ABC Trading
For the period: 1-Jan-2026 to 31-Jan-2026
                                    Opening      Total       Total       Net      Closing
                                    Balance     Debits     Credits    Movement    Balance
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PROFIT AND LOSS

Sales Revenue                             0     300,000          0    300,000        —
Salary Expense                            0           0     60,000    (60,000)       —
Rent Expense                              0           0     15,000    (15,000)       —
Depreciation Expense                      0           0      5,000     (5,000)       —

Profit/Loss for the Period                                           220,000

BALANCE SHEET

ASSETS
  Cash at Bank                      150,000    150,000    155,000     (5,000)   145,000
  Accounts Receivable               200,000    300,000    150,000    150,000    350,000
  Inventory                               0    120,000          0    120,000    120,000
  Accumulated Depreciation                0          0      5,000     (5,000)    (5,000)

LIABILITIES
  Accounts Payable                  150,000     80,000    120,000     40,000    190,000

EQUITY
  Capital Account                   500,000          0          0          0    500,000
  Retained Earnings                  80,000          0    220,000    220,000    300,000

9. Common Issues and Solutions

9.1 Total Debits Do Not Equal Total Credits

Cause: This should never happen since the system enforces double-entry bookkeeping. If the GL Summary shows unequal totals, there may be data corruption or manual database changes.

Solution: Verify the Suspense account balance. If Suspense is not zero, transactions have fallen into suspense because an account was not properly configured. Review and correct those transactions.

9.2 Suspense Account Shows a Balance

Cause: Transactions that could not be matched to a proper account have been placed in Suspense. This typically happens when a required field (Employee, Customer, Supplier) is missing on a transaction.

Solution: Drill into the Suspense balance to see the individual transactions. Edit each transaction and fill in the missing field. The Suspense row is automatically hidden when zero.

9.3 Opening Balance Does Not Match Prior Period Closing

Cause: Opening Balance Entries were added, or transactions were backdated to before the period start.

Solution: The opening balance includes all pre-period transactions plus Opening Balance Entries. If transactions were entered after the prior period was closed, they will adjust the opening balance. This is expected behaviour — the GL Summary always reflects the current state of all transactions.

9.4 P&L Section Shows Closing Balances When They Should Be Blank

Cause: Misunderstanding of the report design. P&L accounts in this report do NOT show closing balances — the columns are blank (—). Only the BS section shows closing balances.

Solution: This is by design. P&L accounts are temporary accounts that reset each period. Their activity is summarised in the Net Movement column and aggregated into the Profit/Loss row.

9.5 Profit/Loss Row Does Not Match the P&L Statement

Cause: Different date ranges, or the Profit/Loss row uses foreign exchange revaluation while the P&L Statement may not.

Solution: Ensure the GL Summary's date range matches the P&L Statement's period. The GL Summary applies FX revaluation for the period dates, which may cause minor differences from a standard P&L that does not revalue.

9.6 Expected Accounts Are Missing

Cause: The account may be inactive, or "Exclude Zero Balances" is enabled and the account has all-zero cells.

Solution: Disable "Exclude Zero Balances" to see all accounts. Check if the account is marked as Inactive in its settings. Verify the account is assigned to the correct group in the Chart of Accounts.

9.7 Balance Sheet Section Shows Total Debits/Total Credits but No Net Movement

Cause: The account may have equal debits and credits in the period, resulting in a zero net movement.

Solution: If "Exclude Zero Balances" is enabled, the row may be hidden if all cells are zero. Check the underlying transactions by drilling into the Total Debits or Total Credits cells. Equal debits and credits indicate fully offsetting entries, which is normal for clearing accounts.

10. Accounting Regulation Compliance

10.1 IAS 1 — Presentation of Financial Statements

10.2 Double-Entry Bookkeeping

10.3 IAS 8 — Accounting Policies, Changes in Accounting Estimates and Errors

10.4 DR = CR Verification

Fundamental Verification:
  Total Debits across ALL accounts = Total Credits across ALL accounts
  If DR = CR: The GL Summary is in balance ✓
  If DR ≠ CR: The Suspense account holds the difference

  Each transaction creates at least one debit and one credit entry
  Opening Balance Sheet equation: A = L + E
  Closing Balance Sheet equation: A = L + E
  Net Profit flows to Retained Earnings
  The GL Summary proves all of these simultaneously

End of General Ledger Summary Guide