Balancing Client Advances

Make sure all transactions for the month have been posted and before entering any activity for the new month run the following reports:

Open Costs Report - choose to run at Original Value

Voucher Expense Listing - run for Vouchers that have been distributed to the Unbilled Client Advances General Ledger account and are still Open.  (This report is not needed if you are on an Accrual basis).

Trial Balance

If on a Cash Basis, the Unbilled Costs Total from the Open Costs Report less the total on the Voucher Expense Listing should equal the balance of your General Ledger Unbilled Client Advances account.  If it does not, check the following:

1.    Check to see if the Unpaid Costs Total on the Open Costs Report balances to the AR Client Advances GL account.  If it does not, there may just be a timing issue.  In this case, take the total of unbilled and unpaid costs on the Open Costs Report and compare it to the total of the Unbilled Client Advances plus the AR Client Advances accounts in the General Ledger.

2.    Check to make sure that all GL transactions for the period you are balancing have been posted.

3.    Check to make sure all invoices have been posted.

4.    Go into the Expense Manager and set your date range to check for a possible future dated transaction.

5.    Print the GL Account History Report for the Unbilled Client Advances Account and choose to Export to PDF.  Use the Adobe Search feature to look for the amount that is causing it not to be balanced.  You may find the one transaction.

6.    If you cannot find the issue after doing all of the above, you have most likely either hit the account with an adjusting journal entry or a Voucher was distributed incorrectly.  If the Unbilled Client Advances account is less than the Open Cost Report, you will need to look for a Client Advance transaction created by a Voucher where the distribution line did not hit Unbilled Client Advances.  

7.    You may use the Voucher Listing Report for this.  Run it for a date range that would capture the transaction and run it for Open and Paid Vouchers.  Unfortunately, this report includes all Vouchers within the date range, regardless of the GL account to which they were distributed.  You will need to scan the report and look for any voucher where a CA transaction was created but the Unbilled Client Advances Account was not used.

8.    If the Unbilled Client Advances account is greater than the Open Cost Report, you will need to look for a voucher that was distributed to the Unbilled Client Advances account but did not create a CA transaction.  Once again, you can use the Voucher Listing Report for this.

9.    Another option is to create a custom report style using the Voucher Expense Listing Report and include the BillingCode object on the report.  You could then run the report for Open and Paid vouchers during the appropriate date range and specify the Unbilled Client Advances Account.  Look for any voucher distribution line where there is not a CA code.

10.    If all else fails, you need to print an Invoice Listing Report and a Detail Check Register for the month.  You then need to compare line by line the activity that appears on these reports to the activity in the GL Account History for Unbilled Client Advances.