How to view the analytic ledger and trial balance

What is it for?

It shows expenses and income by cost centre (for example, by department or by project). The Analytic trial balance gives the totals, the Analytic ledger gives each centre's movements, and General against analytic accounting shows what was left undistributed. These reports only look things up: they create no journal entries and have no effect on VAT.

When to use it?

• When you want to know how much each department or project cost.
• When you need to justify a total, movement by movement.
• Before closing a period, to confirm that the journal entries have a cost centre.
• Do not use them for the company's official accounts: those are the trial balance and the ledger.

Where to find it?

• Accounting › Review › Books and trial balances › Analytic trial balance.
• Accounting › Review › Books and trial balances › Analytic ledger.
• Accounting › Record › Home › What is there to do? › Analyses and reports › General against analytic accounting.

Before you start

• Your profile is Accountant, Certified accountant, Management or Auditor. The Billing profile does not have these entries.
• The cost centres are created and the journal entries have them filled in. See how to use cost centres.

How to use it

1. Open Analytic trial balance. It opens on the current year or, if you have already used it in this session, on the last period chosen, with a total per cost centre.
2. At the top, choose Month, Quarter or Year and, next to it, which one. If you have several plans, choose one in More filters › Analytic Plan.
3. Click the arrow of a centre to see the accounts that make it up.
4. Open Analytic ledger and click the arrow of the same centre to see the movements.
5. On a movement line, click Document to open the source invoice or journal entry.

The export and save options are those of all reports: see how to use the reports.

Expected result

The trial balance shows Debit, Credit and Balance per cost centre, with the Grand total at the end.

The ledger shows the same totals, with each movement below and the running balance. In the example, the Comercial centre adds up to €855.00: the 9 communications invoices of €95.00 each, account 6262.

Both reports must give the same Grand total. In the example, €24,495.00.

Finding what was left without a cost centre

The Grand total only adds up what has a cost centre. To see the rest, open General against analytic accounting:

1. Choose the period at the top. The report shows one month per line, with the number of Journal items to review.
2. Click the arrow of a month. The Problem column says what is wrong with each line: No analytic distribution, or a distribution whose sum is not 100 %.
3. Click Document to open the journal entry and see where it came from.

The report only looks at expenses and income (classes 6 and 7) and leaves out the closing entries of results. A line split across two centres, adding up to 100 %, does not appear.

In the example, there are 111 lines in 2026, including customer invoices. Not every line needs a cost centre: which ones do is a company decision. So a list with lines is not an error in itself.

Important notes

• Do not confuse this with the split by cost centre of the balance sheet and income statement: in More filters › View by cost centre, those statements get one column per centre.
• Each company has its own figures. Check the company selected in the top-right corner.

Common problems

“The start date of the period cannot be after its end date.” In More filters, the date in From is after the date in until. Correct one of them: the report appears again.

An expense does not appear in the cost centre. The journal entry line has no distribution. Look for it in General against analytic accounting.

The analytic trial balance does not match the company's trial balance. That is normal: it only counts what has a cost centre. The difference is in General against analytic accounting.