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Reviewing Trial Balance In Beam Machine

How to review the Trial Balance tab in the live Beam Machine Financial Reports route.

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Reviewing Trial Balance In Beam Machine

This page shows you how to use the Trial Balance tab in Beam Machine without confusing it with the other statement tabs in the same route.

Product: Beam Machine
Module: Reports -> Reporting -> Financial Reports -> Trial Balance
Role: Accountant, Financial Controller, Reviewer
Difficulty: Beginner
Time: 5 minutes
Last Updated: 2026-03-10
Version: Current live reporting route in this repo

Before You Start

  • You need posted journal data, or the table will be empty.
  • You need to know the correct As of date for the review.
  • If you want the shared route overview first, open ./01-running-financial-reports.md.

Current build status: This tab is live and data-driven inside the shared Financial Reports route. It is the default tab when the page opens. The Print button works, and the Export button is visible but disabled.

What is this page?

This tab shows the trial balance for the selected date. It lists each account with its debit and credit totals and then checks whether the books balance overall.

In practice, this is the first statement you use when someone says, "Prove the ledger is netting off properly before we talk about performance."

When do you use this?

Use this tab when you need:

  • a month-end or year-end balancing check,
  • an audit-support starting point,
  • a quick account-level balance review,
  • or proof that total debits still equal total credits.

If the trial balance is wrong, every prettier report built on top of it gets weaker immediately.

Where do you find it?

Primary path: Reports -> Reporting -> Financial Reports
Alternative: Open Reports -> Reporting, then click Financial Reports

The current page opens on Trial Balance by default, so you do not need to click another tab unless you moved away from it earlier.

How do you review the trial balance?

  1. Open Reports -> Reporting -> Financial Reports.
  2. Confirm you are on the Trial Balance tab.
  3. Check that the toolbar shows a single As of date field.
  4. Set the correct As of date.
  5. Click Print if you need a printer-friendly copy.
  6. Ignore Export for now, because the button is disabled in the current build.

āœ… Checkpoint: The toolbar should show As of date, and the card header should show Trial Balance.

What should you check first?

  1. Review the status line in the card header:
    • As of <date>
    • Balanced or Unbalanced
  2. Review the table columns:
    • Code
    • Account
    • Type
    • Debit
    • Credit
  3. Review the Totals row in the footer.
  4. Treat the dash character in a value cell as "nothing on this side", not as a broken value.

āœ… Checkpoint: A healthy trial balance shows matching total debits and total credits, and the badge reads Balanced.

What must you handle carefully?

  1. Stop immediately if the badge shows Unbalanced.
  2. Go back to source journals, ledger movements, and account setup before using the report for review support.
  3. Do not explain away a mismatch inside the report page itself. The page is flagging a real accounting problem, not a presentation preference.

Common Questions & Issues

"The page says no posted journal entries found"

Why this happens: The route only becomes useful once journals have been posted.

Fix: Post the source entries first, then refresh the page.

"Why do I only see one date field?"

Why this happens: Trial balance is a point-in-time statement, so the toolbar uses As of date rather than a date range.

Fix: Use the single date field for the balance date you want to review.

"The trial balance is unbalanced"

Why this happens: Total debits and total credits do not agree in the current books.

Fix: Investigate source entries in Accounting before you rely on any downstream statement.

What's Next

Related Pages

SA Compliance Reference

  • Trial balance review supports month-end close, audit preparation, and annual financial statement support.
  • It does not replace review of reconciliations, source documents, or controlled closing procedures.

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