AR Out of Balances

When producing financials, it's common to have an out-of-balance between the GL Balances on the Balance Sheet, and the totals found on the AR Aging report. In this article, we'll discuss how to find these issues, and what to do to fix some common examples.

Note: If your association is set to Cash Accounting in Vantaca, you will not see outs in the Financial Summary screen because receivables are not recorded on your balance sheet. Should you find an AR balance on your balance sheet, the same techniques can be used to determine the source of any errors.

Begin with the Financial Summary

The quickest way to find a financial Out of Balance is by using the Home > Financial Summary screen. You can get an overview of this screen by viewing Financial Summary.

The AR column compares the balance sheet code found in Association > Settings > Accounting > GL for A/R with both the AR Aging Report and Rec Type Balance Report for your Association.

It is unlikely you’ll ever see a difference in the AR Aging and Rec Type Balance reports. It is more likely that these two reports will match each other, but will not match the Balance Sheet.

Note: If the association being viewed is set to Cash Accounting, your Balance Sheet value will pull in $0.00 and any difference will not appear in red.

Before you begin looking through reports, make sure to refresh the Home > Financial Summary screen in each applicable Period so you know which month to start your research. While the Financial Summary will refresh the three (3) most recent periods each night, you will want to refresh each period to both update for any changes made today and refresh historically to see where the issue began. Depending on the amount of data for your Association's accounting, this may take a few moments. 

Take a Look at your Reports

For example, assuming your Out of Balance began in January, we’ll want to compare the Balance Sheet and AR report for July. Since the system uses the total AR, this example will use the Consolidated Balance Sheet or Balance Sheet (w/ Codes).

Note: This report may be different from what is produced for your associations.

In this example, on the 9^th of January, the balance sheet and AR report are still in balance.

But on the 10^th, they are no longer in balance.

This tells me that a change occurred on the 10^th.

GL Research Screen

Once you have an idea of when the Out occurred, it's now simply a matter of finding the transaction. Navigate to the Accounting > GL Research screen. Here, you can set a date range, enter your GL code, and begin your search. Common problems are deleted payments on the homeowner account and GL entries. Remember, GL entries may be attached to Post Items or Misc Check processing.

If your issue was created by a journal entry, review the journal entry and correct it.

If you have gone through all of these steps and are unable to determine the source of the out or are unsure how to correct it, please submit a support ticket with as much detail as possible, including what steps you’re already taken.