Trial Balance

The Trial Balance is the fastest way to check whether your books are mathematically balanced. It lists every account in your chart of accounts along with the net of its debits and credits, grouped by account type. Total debits across all accounts must equal total credits — if they don't, something is wrong and needs to be tracked down before you trust any other report.

Double-entry bookkeeping only works when every transaction posts equal debits and credits. Because NP Ledger enforces balanced entries at the transaction level, a balanced Trial Balance is almost always the expected result. Its value is as a sanity check: if the totals ever don't match, you know to stop and investigate before sharing reports with a board, auditor, or funder. Auditors and CPAs will also ask for the Trial Balance early in an engagement as the starting point for their testing.

• Posted transactions in at least one accounting period (draft transactions are not included)
• A fiscal year configured so the report can default to a sensible date range

Running the report

1. Go to Reports > Trial Balance (in the sidebar).
2. Set the date range using the filter controls. The report shows the net of each account's debits and credits through the end date.
3. Optionally filter by fund, program, or fiscal year to scope the report.
4. Click "Apply" to generate the report.

Reading the report

The Trial Balance groups accounts by type — Asset, Liability, Net Asset, Revenue, Expense, Contra Asset, and Contra Revenue — and shows each account's balance as debits minus credits. Because that subtraction is signed, some account types will normally show negative balances in this view:

• Assets and Expenses are debit-normal. They should show positive balances.
• Liabilities, Net Assets, and Revenue are credit-normal. They will naturally show negative balances in the Balance column, and that is correct. A negative Net Assets balance means your organization has accumulated net assets — it's a good thing.
• Contra Asset and Contra Revenue accounts (like Accumulated Depreciation or Refunds) sit against their parent category and will show the opposite sign from the type they offset.

At the bottom of the report you'll see Total Debits and Total Credits. These must be equal. A "Balanced: Yes" indicator confirms the check passed. If you see "Balanced: NO — out of balance," stop and investigate before running any other report.

NP Ledger highlights any account balance that sits on the opposite side from what's expected for its type (for example, an expense account with a credit balance). These flagged rows are worth reviewing. They may indicate a refund posted to the wrong account, a reversal, or a data-entry error — not necessarily a bug, but worth a second look.

Exporting the report

1. Click "CSV" to download a spreadsheet version suitable for further analysis.
2. Click "PDF" to download a formatted document suitable for board packets or audit requests.

• Total Debits equals Total Credits. This is the whole point of the report. If they don't match, do not share any other financial statements until the discrepancy is resolved.
• No account type is missing. Every account you expect to see should appear under its correct type.
• Flagged balances are expected. An expense account with a credit balance might be a refund (legitimate) or a misclassification (needs a correction).
• The date range covers the period you intended. A Trial Balance at the wrong end date tells you nothing.

• Reading a negative Net Assets or Revenue line as a problem. It isn't. Credit-normal accounts show negative balances in this view because the report subtracts credits from debits. To see a friendly presentation, use the Statement of Financial Position or the Statement of Activities instead.
• Ignoring "out of balance." If NP Ledger ever reports the Trial Balance as out of balance, something is wrong with the data — possibly a failed migration, a bulk import issue, or a manual database edit. This should never happen under normal use, and it's not safe to ignore.
• Running the Trial Balance before posting drafts. Draft transactions are excluded. If you expect to see recent activity and don't, check whether those entries are still in Draft status.
• Confusing Trial Balance with the General Ledger. Trial Balance is one line per account (the net). The General Ledger shows every individual line item posted to each account. Use Trial Balance to confirm balance; use the General Ledger to investigate a specific account.

Accountant note: This Trial Balance is the unadjusted trial balance at the date you select — it reflects whatever is posted in the ledger at that point. Adjusting entries (accruals, deferrals, depreciation, release of restrictions) may still need to be booked before producing final financial statements. The report is balanced because NP Ledger validates that every transaction has equal debits and credits before posting; an imbalance here always points to a data-integrity issue, not a posting error at the transaction level.