A/P to G/L Discrepancies

Solving a Discrepancy between the A/P & G/L
Once the steps on balancing the A/P sub-ledger and the General Ledger Accounts Payable control account are completed, as discussed in Aged A/P Summary, if a discrepancy is identified use the software to determine where the discrepancy occurred by following the steps outlined below:

Step 1

Determine the date when the Accounts Payable sub-ledger last agreed to the Accounts Payable account in the General Ledger.
The search for the discrepancy will begin at the last known point where the sub-ledger was in balance.

Note: If it is not known when the Accounts Payable sub-ledger last agreed to the Accounts Payable account in the General Ledger, or if they have never agreed, then the program does not have a valid starting date and will not be successful in searching for the discrepancy.
Refer to How to Solve Manually below.

If data has been compressed or purged in the Accounts Payable sub-ledger or the A/P Control Account has been compressed in the General Ledger since the date that last balanced, then the detail necessary for the software to do the comparison will be missing. This means it will not likely be able to identify the discrepancy.
Refer to How to Solve Manually below.

How to Solve Manually:
Check each invoice amount on the Current Aged A/P Detail for each vendor for accuracy.
After confirming from this detailed check that the Aged A/P Report is correct, then this means that the A/P Sub-ledger has the authoritative total.

A journal entry in the General Ledger will be needed to agree the Accounts Payable account in the G/L to the Aged A/P Report total.
Discuss the issue with your accountant referencing the report, and explain that there is a discrepancy. Request a corrective journal entry to resolve this problem.
The accountant should provide the account numbers and amounts appropriate to your firm.

Step 2

If there are no compression issues with the data, determine the date when the A/P Sub-ledger was last known to agree to the A/P Control Account in the General Ledger.
This would become the start date for this utility to compare the transactions in the A/P and the G/L as follows:

FROM DATE

Enter the date to begin the search for the discrepancy.
This will be the date plus one day when the Aged A/P Report last agreed to the G/L account for Accounts Payable.

TO DATE

Enter the ending date to end the search. This is usually today's date.

ALL CURRENCIES

Check this box if all currencies post to a single G/L Control Account for Accounts Payable, as defined in Default Accounts.

If your firm uses more than one currency code when entering Accounts Payable invoices, then it is probable that there is more than one General Ledger account for Accounts Payable invoices (each currency can post to a separate G/L Account), as setup in Default Accounts.

If this is the case uncheck this box and select the currency to run this option and the remaining Steps for one currency code at a time for the corresponding G/L Control Accounts.

CURRENCY CODE

When there are multiple A/P Control Accounts, run this option and the remaining Steps for one currency code at a time for the corresponding G/L Account.
e.g. Currency C - posts to G/L Acct# 1200 Accounts Receivable Canadian, Currency U - posts to G/L Acct# 1201 Accounts Receivable U.S.

This approach may isolate the discrepancy faster, if you are able to determine which currency is out of balance.

DIVISION, "ALL" OR "SEL"

This filter only applies if your firm utilizes the Activate G/L Posting By Division feature as set in Support Application Parameters so that the "A/P Control Account" posting to the General Ledger reflects the specific Division assigned.
This filter does not apply if this feature is divisional posting feature is not activated as the postings to the A/P Control Account always post to the Head Office (blank) division.

• Type ALL to include all divisions in the job.
• To run the compare for a single division, leave this field blank for the Head Office Division, or enter a specific division code, or select a division from the drop-down list.
• Type SEL to select several specific divisions or divisions by accounting region to include, as outlined in Division Select By Region.

Finished?

Click ACCEPT to proceed with the compare process or cancel to ABORT.
The progress of the utility is reported on the message line at the bottom left of the screen.

Step 3

After Step 2 is completed, the software automatically links to the Review A/P To G/L Discrepancy screen.
The prompts are:

ACCT #

Enter the G/L Account for the Accounts Payable account which corresponds to the currency selected in Step 2 or press <ENTER> if the program was run for All Currencies.

DATE

Type in the Start Date used in Step 2 or for all entries which do not agree.

Resulting Paging Screen:

ACCT

This is the G/L Accounts Payable account number used to compare to the A/P sub-ledger.

DATE

The software will display only the dates when the A/P sub ledger did not agree to the G/L Accounts Payable Account.

A/P AMT

This is the sum of all entries to the Vendor's accounts for that date.

G/L AMT

This is the sum of all postings to the General Ledger account for that date.

DIFFERENCE

This is the net discrepancy between the A/P Sub-ledger and the G/L Accounts Payable account for that date.

Make a note of each date, account and amounts. This information will be needed for a more detailed search with the next steps.

Step 4

Select A/P Invoice / Check Search to search for the invoice activity for the Accounts Payable for the selected date.

Note: When specifying the amount to search, this may only be successful if the discrepancy is due to a single invoice.
If the discrepancy is made up of several invoices, all transactions for that day should be reviewed.

Step 5

Select A/P Invoice / Check Search to search for the payment activity for the Accounts Payable for the selected date.

Note: When specifying the amount to search, this may only be successful if the discrepancy is due to a single payment.
If the discrepancy is made up of several payments, all transactions for that day should be reviewed.

Step 6

Select G/L Find to search the activity for the selected General Ledger A/P Control Account postings on a selected date.

Finding the Discrepancy:
Compare each G/L entry found in this Step 6, with the information found in the A/P in Steps 4 and 5 to manually determine the discrepancy.

Once the discrepancy is identified, contact Texada Support for instructions on how to correct this discrepancy.