A Balance Sheet is a snapshot of your business’ financial position on a given day, usually calculated at the end of the quarter or year. Balance Sheets are also useful in summarizing your business’ assets, liabilities and owner’s equity (also known as shareholders’ equity).
The way your finances balance is as follows: Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity. When everything balances, all your finances have been accounted for.
Access the Balance Sheet
To access your Balance Sheet, use these steps:
- Select the Accounting section
- Then select Balance Sheet under Accounting Reports.
To adjust your view of the Balance Sheet report, select Filters under Settings. From there, you can change:
- Reset all - Select this link to restore the filters back to the default settings
- Balance Date - Choose from Custom, Today, End of Last Month, or End of Last Quarter (note that Jan 1, 2018 is the earliest date we can retrieve data from currently for Balance Sheets in Beta) - if you’ve changed your fiscal year end date, you can also choose from the extra options
- Compare Dates - If Custom is selected, check this box off and ensure you have a Start Date and End Date to compare with
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Accounting Method - Run the Balance Sheet report by either Billed (Accrual) or Collected (Cash-Based) income:
- Billed (Accrual) - Contains income and expenses for all transactions, whether cash has exchanged hands or not, and includes any sent invoices and bills that are still unpaid
- Collected (Cash-Based) - Contains income and expenses for transactions where cash has exchanged hands, and includes any sent invoices and bills that have a paid status
- Currency - Toggle between multiple currencies, only one currency can be viewed at a time
Additional options can also be accessed in the top right corner of the Balance Sheet report:
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More Actions
- Export for Excel - Download the report as a CSV file
- Print - Print the report or save the report as a PDF using the print dialog
- Send... - Send the report to any specific email addresses
Notes:
- Net Income - Displays current period earnings
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Retained Earnings - Displays previous period earnings, this is the profit remaining at the end of the reporting period after all costs, taxes and dividends to shareholders have been paid
- Automatically calculated from prior years’ net income plus any journal entries made directly to the Retained Earnings account (use General Ledger report instead to view any journal entries made to Retained Earnings account)
- The Balance Sheet shows balances for parent accounts only, export the Balance Sheet as a CSV to view more details
- To understand what makes up each account’s balance, use the Chart of Accounts or the Trial Balance report
- When comparing the Balance Sheet balances of Asset, Liability, and Equity accounts on an accrual basis with the Chart of Accounts / Trial Balance report, ensure the date range is set to the date of the first transaction in your business
FAQs
Why does my net income on the Balance Sheet not match the net profit on my Profit and Loss report or Trial Balance?
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Profit and Loss report - The net income on the Balance Sheet should match the net profit on your Profit and Loss report
- Totals may not match exactly due to sales taxes on bills and expenses which are excluded from the Profit and Loss report, review Sales Tax Summary report if needed
- Trial Balance report - The Trial Balance report does not include the Retained Earnings balance, use Compare Dates in the Balance Sheet’s filters to find the net income for the period that matches your Trial Balance report instead
It is recommended to use the Compare Dates in the Filters on the Balance Sheet to find the Net Income for the period that matches your Profit and Loss report or Trial Balance instead.
How can I reflect my fiscal year in my reports?
How can I reflect my fiscal year in my reports?
If you need to adjust any of your reports to reflect a particular year, or a year end, select the Filters next to any report's title to adjust the date range. For example, review the steps in the Profit and Loss report here.