Reviewing a Set of Books Kept in BigLedger

Somebody has to be able to say the accounts are right, and to show why. That person may be your external auditor, your tax agent, the company secretary signing the directors’ report, or you, the finance manager, making sure the others find nothing. By the end of this guide you will have run a year-end review of a set of books kept in BigLedger: the proofs that the figures hold together, the checks BigLedger does not do for you, and a list of exceptions with a name against each one. Allow a day for the first pass. The month-end version takes about two hours.

BigLedger is very good at one half of this. Every document that reaches FINAL writes its own journal, so the ledger agrees with the documents by construction. The other half is the reviewer’s job and always was: deciding whether what was recorded is complete, dated in the right period, valued honestly and supported. No software does that half. This guide says which half each check belongs to.

The review, at a glance

Step 1 is on this page, Steps 2 to 4 on Tie-outs, cut-off and the entries no document raises, and Steps 5 to 7 on Retained earnings, the group and the sample.

Two short sections close the review, after Step 7: The four questions to ask of any set of accounts and Recognising a control failure in the evidence.

Meet GadgetSphere

GadgetSphere is a group of three companies: GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd (GS, 22 retail branches), GadgetSphere Online Sdn Bhd (GSO) and GadgetSphere Distribution Sdn Bhd (GSD, wholesale to corporate customers). Their financial year ends on 31 December 2026. The external auditors arrive in February 2027, and the finance manager wants every question they will ask answered before they do. The examples below use GS, with the group question in Step 6.

What a set of accounts claims, and who answers for each claim

When GS publishes its accounts, it is making five claims. Each one belongs to somebody, and each has a test. BigLedger holds the evidence for most of them. It does not hold the judgement for any of them.

The claim	Who answers for it	Where the evidence is in BigLedger	The test (step below)
The assets exist. The cash is in the bank, the stock is on the shelves, the customers really owe it	The finance manager, and the directors who sign	Bank Reconciliation reports, the stock count, the Debtor Report aging	Steps 2 and 7
The liabilities are complete. Every supplier bill and accrual that belongs to the year is in the year	The finance manager	Creditor Report, goods received but not yet invoiced, the manual journals list	Steps 3 and 4
Each figure is in the right period (cut-off)	The accounts team, checked by the finance manager	The transaction date on every document and journal	Step 3
The figures are this company’s own, not another group company’s, and nothing is counted twice	The group finance manager	The Set of Books and the company on each document	Step 6
The values are honest. Doubtful debts are provided for, assets are depreciated	The finance manager, approved by a director	The manual journals that post them, because no document does	Step 4

If a claim has nobody’s name against it at GS, that is your first finding. It will not appear in any report.

Before you start

You can open the Financial Report, Ledger and Journal, Debtor Report, Creditor Report and Bank Reconciliation applets for every company you are reviewing. Read access is enough for everything in this guide. An auditor should be given read access only. Step 5 of Who May Change the Books explains why.
Month End Processing has been run for every month of the year, in date order, after the last posting. If it has not, the Trial Balance you are about to read is a photograph taken before the last changes. See Which figures BigLedger stores, and which it works out fresh.
You have the bank statements for 31 December, the stock count sheets and the supplier statements the finance team received in January.

Step 1: Prove the trial balance, then look for a constant difference

The outcome: you know the books balance, or you know by how much and why they do not.

Finance > Financial Report > Financial Report > (the FY 2026 snapshot) > Trial Balance

Read the footer. Total debits must equal total credits to the cent. Do this before you look at the Balance Sheet. The Trial Balance is the one report that lists every account’s debits and credits side by side, so it is the proof. The Balance Sheet is a summary built on top of it.

If the trial balance is out, look at the difference month by month. A difference that appears in one month and then stays exactly the same in every month after it points to one cause first: an opening balance keyed on a profit-and-loss account. When BigLedger closes a month, it writes an opening journal for the next month, and that journal carries forward only balance-sheet accounts. Profit-and-loss accounts start every period from zero, which is correct. So an amount somebody keyed as an “opening balance” on a sales or expense account never reaches the next month’s opening, and every later month is short by exactly that amount. It will not heal on its own.

The test takes one look. On the opening balance you were migrated with (Master Data > Chart of Account > (company) > Ledgers > the primary ledger > Opening Balance), the opening balances across every account must add up to zero, and not one of them may sit on a profit-and-loss account. Last year’s result belongs inside retained earnings (EQUITY-RETAINED) before the first day of the new year.

The fix is the preparer’s job, not the reviewer’s: move the amount from the profit-and-loss account into retained earnings, then re-run Month End Processing for every month from that one forward, in date order. The reviewer’s job is to confirm it was done, by reading the footer again.

Why the Trial Balance, and not the Balance Sheet. In some accounting software the Balance Sheet works out the equity line as whatever makes the two sides agree, so it always looks nearly balanced and the error hides. BigLedger’s Balance Sheet does not do that. Every line on it, retained earnings included, is read from the accounts in that section, and each total is a plain sum. Nothing on it is a balancing figure. So in BigLedger an out-of-balance Balance Sheet is a real signal. A balanced one is still not the proof, because it does not list the profit-and-loss accounts at all. The Trial Balance lists every account.

When the books will not balance, work through the causes in this order. The senior accountant works the list. The reviewer confirms each item is ticked or explained.

A month processed too early. Month End Processing must have run for every month up to this one, in date order, after that month’s last posting. A month processed before its last postings shows a Balance Sheet out by about that month’s result. Re-run it and every month after it.
The two default codes behind the year-end transfer. The transfer into retained earnings reads the profit-and-loss account and the retained-earnings account from the company’s Default GL Codes (Master Data > Chart of Account > (company) > Default GL Codes). If either is missing, the transfer is incomplete or is not written at all, and if it fails nothing tells you. Both must be set.
A journal that does not balance. Finance > Ledger and Journal > Error Checking > Journal Not Balance, for the period. A month-end journal is not on it by design: the close writes each one to balance on its own, so one listed there comes from an older close or is rounding. Read how to tell rounding from an old close before you act on the list.
A constant difference, from an opening balance on a profit-and-loss account (above).
An account with movement that is missing from every report. Its GL category is not linked to a report section, so the reports leave it out. Link the category in Chart of Account, then re-process the month.

How you know you got it right: the footer balances for every month of the year, not only December.

Steps 2 to 7, in brief

Step 2: Tie every sub-ledger to its control account

The outcome: each balance-sheet total that has a detailed list behind it agrees with that list, or every difference has a named reason. (Step 2)

Step 3: Test the cut-off

The outcome: sales, purchases and costs for the year are in the year, and nothing from January 2027 has leaked back. (Step 3)

Step 4: Check the entries that no document raises

The outcome: every adjustment the year needs is posted, authorised and supported. (Step 4)

Step 5: Confirm the year’s result reached retained earnings

The outcome: the profit for 2026 is inside equity, and 2027 opens with every profit-and-loss account at zero. (Step 5)

Step 6: Reconcile the group companies with each other

The outcome: what GS says GSD owes it equals what GSD says it owes GS, and you know what must be removed before anyone adds the three companies together. (Step 6)

Step 7: Trace a sample, in both directions

The outcome: you can show the auditor that a figure in the accounts comes from a real event, and that a real event made it into the accounts. (Step 7)

What success looks like

In 30 seconds: open your review file and check that it holds (1) a trial balance that balances for every month, (2) a tie-out sheet for receivables, payables, every bank account, cashbook to ledger, output tax and input tax, every line zero or explained, (3) a list of manual journals over your threshold with support and approver, (4) the retained-earnings arithmetic, (5) agreed intercompany balances and an elimination list, and (6) an exception list with a name and a date on every row. If all six are there, your close pack is complete, and it is what the auditors will ask for first.

Common mistakes

Mistake	What you see	What to do instead
Reading the Balance Sheet first	A balance sheet that is nearly right, and days spent looking in the wrong report	Prove the Trial Balance first (Step 1)
Reviewing a snapshot taken before the last postings	Figures that disagree with the ledger you drill into	Confirm Month End Processing ran after the last posting for every month, then regenerate the snapshot

The mistakes that belong to Steps 2 to 4 are on Tie-outs and cut-off, and those for Steps 5 to 7 on Close, group and sample.