Reports

“Two reports over the same period give different totals. Which is right?” In purchasing the answer is usually both: the Purchase Report, the Creditor Report and the ledger are made from different things at different moments. This page is for the accounts-payable clerk who pays suppliers from these reports and for the accountant who closes the month on them. It says where each figure comes from, why figures that should agree do not, and how the payables reports get tied to the ledger so that the month stays closed.

Meet the example. GadgetSphere Sdn Bhd (GS) closes March. Its 22 branches finalised a month of supplier bills on the standard receiving pair, among them US-dollar bills from a regional distributor in Singapore. On 31 March the Creditor Report’s Outstanding Document Report totals RM 1,286,450.00, and the four creditor accounts in the ledger add up to RM 1,282,950.00. Its online arm, GadgetSphere Online Sdn Bhd (GSO), receives at its fulfilment centre on the Stock In pair, so it has an accrual for deliveries not yet billed to tie out as well. The sections below follow both.

Where each purchasing figure comes from

Every report on this page reads; none of them stores what it shows. But the things they read are of three kinds: document lines summed when you press Search, a balance stored on each supplier document and changed by knock-off, payment and contra, and a snapshot taken once a month. Which kind a figure is tells you whether it can move after you have read it.

The figure	Made when, from what	So it can move when
Purchase Report amounts (both reports)	Summed on each run from the product lines of FINAL purchase invoices, purchase returns and No Stock In invoices, over the period on one header date you choose with Date Type — the transaction date unless you change it. Every amount is multiplied by the line’s quantity sign, so returns subtract. A US-dollar invoice is converted in your browser at that invoice’s own rate	A document dated in the period is finalised or voided later. A No Stock In invoice adds nothing: its lines carry a quantity sign of zero, so it shows as a row of zeros — a known issue, recorded for engineering
Purchase Report cost columns	Quantity times the moving average stored on the invoice line — written back by the costing job after FINAL, not worked out by the report	The line was finalised a moment ago and the job has not run; or a back-dated purchase re-costed it. On US-dollar rows the cost conversion is not settled, so check one row against the item’s average before you rely on it
Stock Balance on the item-code report	The location’s running balance on the last stock-ledger line before the end of the period	It is as at the period end, not today, and per location
**GRN No and PO No**	Looked up on each run from the invoice’s active knock-off links: GRN No from GRN-to-invoice links, PO No only through that GRN	Blank for an invoice keyed without knock-off, and PO No blank for an invoice knocked off an order directly
Purchase Order Queue, PO Line with GRN KO, PO Line with PI KO	Stored open balances, one per order line for each kind of document that may follow, written by a job after FINAL and rewritten when a knock-off is saved	A knock-off, a CLOSE or a per-row Close changes them. A balance missing a moment after FINAL is a job not yet run
Closed Queue KO	A stored record written when somebody presses the per-row Close on PO Line with GRN KO	It does not list lines emptied by a document-level CLOSE
Outstanding Document, Aging, AP Transaction	Read live from the balance stored on each FINAL supplier document — open amount plus contras — for entities of the four payable types, converted to ringgit at each document’s own rate. Age is today minus the transaction date. The Outstanding Document Report also keeps only entities flagged as suppliers. The Statement of Account reads the same documents but dates each contra by its contra date	A payment, knock-off or contra is saved, even one dated last month. Run on 5 April, they show 5 April’s balances
Historical Creditor Report, Historical Transaction Aging Analysis	A snapshot of every open balance, taken by a monthly clock in the Scheduler at 01:00 on the 1st	It does not move as documents are finalised. A late run stores that day’s balances under the month-end date, and a missing clock means no month is ever taken
Payment Details with Purchase Invoice	Read live from the contra records joining each FINAL payment voucher — or purchase debit note — to the standard purchase invoices it settled	A payment not yet set against any bill is not in it; that payment sits on the Outstanding Document Report as an open document instead. A payment set against a No Stock In invoice is not in it either
GRN quantity in Stock Availability	Worked out when you load the screen from plain GRNs’ stored open balances toward the purchase invoice	Zero if the company has no Purchase GRN → Purchase Invoice knock-off row
The journal behind every one of these	Written by a job once the document is FINAL, from the GL codes and the supplier’s AR/AP type as they are at that moment. A re-post deletes the document’s journal and builds a new one	Somebody re-posts after a setting changed

FINAL comes first, the books follow. Pressing FINAL commits the document and puts one job in a queue; the journal, the stock movement, the cost written back onto the line and the open-queue rows are written by the jobs that one sets off. So for a short time — and indefinitely if a job fails — a bill is on the Purchase Report and in the Creditor Report with no journal behind it. That alone can make the payables reports and the ledger differ by the last few bills of the day.

Which report answers which question

Question	Report
What did we spend with each supplier, or on each category, this quarter?	Purchase Report, grouped by supplier or read on the category columns — but see No Stock In invoices above
What did we pay per unit for this item over the year, and how much of it do we still hold?	Purchase Report By Item Code: Purchase Amount against Stock Balance at the period end
Which bills were paid above the price we agreed?	Purchase Report with Calculate Base On set to the purchase maximum price (switch that basis on in the applet’s settings first): the cost columns then show what each line would have cost at the agreed limit, beside Amount Net, what you paid
What have we ordered and not received?	Purchase Order Queue; PO Line with GRN KO for the line detail
What have we received and not been billed for?	Standard pair: Stock Availability, GRN quantity. Stock In pair: the Outstanding Document Report’s GRN Stock In rows
What do we owe, and how old is it?	Outstanding Document Report, or the Aging Report in month mode
What did we owe at the end of last month, as it stood then?	Historical Creditor Report, where the monthly clock runs
Which invoices did Tuesday’s bank payment run clear?	Payment Details with Purchase Invoice, with Cashbook set to the paying account and the run’s date — for standard purchase invoices; on the Stock In pair, read each payment’s own contras
What is left on a blanket agreement?	The Blanket Purchase Order applet’s Report
Which requisitions has nobody ordered yet?	Purchase Requisition → Line Items Queue
Which supplier did this serial come from?	Stock Report → Stock Balance Report by Supplier with Serial

The supplier also has its own window: Purchase Order Supplier Access runs an order-against-receipt report scoped to that supplier, so the supplier reads what you are still waiting for from the same balances your buyer reads.

Why two figures that should agree do not

When two purchasing figures differ, the cause is nearly always one of the following. Only the rows that end in “a document with no journal” or “a supplier on the wrong type” mean something is wrong.

The two figures	Why they differ	What to do
The Purchase Report total against the Purchases account	The report counts No Stock In invoices as zero while the ledger has them in full; it filters on whichever Date Type you chose while the journal is dated by the transaction date; it leaves out drafts; and a bill finalised minutes ago may have no journal yet	Do not tie purchases to the ledger with the Purchase Report. The Financial Report’s Stock Flow Report compares the documents with their journals by module — see the month-end section below
The by-document report against the by-item-code report	The item-code report hides GL-code lines until you untick Optional, and splits an item into one row per currency and rate	Untick Optional and compare totals, not rows
The by-document total against the invoices it lists	An invoice knocked off two GRNs repeats each of its lines once per GRN, and the footer counts it twice — rare, and a known issue	Sort on Doc No; a line shown twice with different GRN No is this
The Outstanding Document Report against the trade creditors account	The report covers suppliers of four payable types, and each type posts to its own account: trade suppliers to Creditors (default code `CREDITOR`), other suppliers to Other Creditors (`CREDITOR_NON_TRADE`), merchants to Merchant Payable (`MERCHANT_PAYABLE`), staff to Employee Payable (`EMPLOYEE_OTHER_PAYABLE`). It also lists GRN Stock Ins, which post to Creditor Not Invoiced (`CREDITOR_NOT_INVOICED`) whatever the supplier’s type. The ledger also carries manual journals the report never sees	Compare the report with the sum of the creditor accounts, with GRN Stock In rows taken out or set against Creditor Not Invoiced, and staff or merchants not flagged as suppliers counted separately
The same comparison, after all of that	A FINAL bill with no journal — its job failed or has not run	Missing Journal in Ledger And Journal lists it; re-post from there once the cause is fixed
A supplier’s bills in the ledger and missing from the Creditor Report — or listed there and sitting in Debtors	The supplier’s type for that company is a receivable one (`AR_TRADE`), so the bill credited Debtors. The report asks for payable types: it leaves the supplier out when it is receivable everywhere, and lists the bill when the supplier holds a payable type in another company or on its own record — then the bill is on the report and missing from the creditor accounts	Correct the supplier’s type for that company, then re-post its bills. Related Applets walks the case
Today’s Outstanding Document Report against last month’s Historical Creditor Report	One is today’s balances, the other a snapshot taken on the 1st. A payment, contra or late bill since then moves the first only	Use the historical report for “as at month end”; use today’s report for the payment run
The Aging Report’s day columns against its Balance	In day mode the day columns hold each bill’s original open amount; Balance holds what is left	Reconcile on Balance, or use month mode
The Statement of Account against the Outstanding Document Report, for a month just past	The statement counts a contra on its contra date; the today reports show the balance as it stands now	Neither is wrong; date contras in the month they belong to
An order still showing a balance after its goods were billed	The order keeps one balance per downstream document type; an invoice knocked off the GRN leaves the order’s balance toward the invoice untouched	Switch off the pair you do not use; CLOSE the order. Core Concepts §1 explains it
BigLedger’s balance for a supplier against the supplier’s own statement	A bill they sent that you have not keyed; a note keyed in the wrong direction; a payment they have not applied	The supplier-statement check under Tying the payables reports to the ledger below

Tying the payables reports to the ledger at month end

Nothing in BigLedger totals the creditor documents against the creditor accounts for you. The Stock Flow Report compares documents with journals for goods; Trace Document checks one document at a time. The tie-out below is a person’s job, and it is the one that tells you the reports can be trusted for the payment run.

Who, and when. The accountant, on the last working day of the month, per company, before the month is locked; the AP clerk does the supplier statements in the same week; the buyer answers for the open orders. About twenty minutes for GS.

The creditor accounts

In Ledger And Journal, Error Checking › Missing Journal, run the month for each supplier document type you use. At GS it lists one Other Creditors bill of RM 3,500.00, finalised on the 31st, whose journal job failed. Resolve on that bill in the Financial Report’s Trace Document either posts the journal or names what is missing — here, the company’s Other Creditors default code. Map it, then Resolve again.
Run the Outstanding Document Report on the last day, after the last payment of the month is finalised (or the Historical Creditor Report on the 1st, where the clock runs). Note the total with GRN Stock In rows excluded: GS has none, so it stays RM 1,286,450.00. This report lists only entities flagged as suppliers, so claims from staff who are not flagged sit in Employee Payable and not here — count those from the Aging Report.
Add up the four creditor accounts in the ledger as at the same day: Creditors RM 1,238,900.00, Other Creditors RM 41,300.00, Employee Payable RM 2,750.00, Merchant Payable nil — RM 1,282,950.00.
Name every ringgit of the difference. At GS it is the RM 3,500.00 bill from step 1; once it is re-posted the difference is nil.

You are done when the difference is zero, or every ringgit in it has a name — a bill with no journal yet, or a manual journal somebody keyed to a creditor account. A difference nobody can name is the one to chase before the payment run, not after.

The not-invoiced accounts (Stock In pair)

At GSO a GRN Stock In posts the delivery to Inventory Not Invoiced and Creditor Not Invoiced, and the No Stock In invoice knocked off it reverses both. So the Outstanding Document Report, filtered to GRN Stock In, is the list behind that account.

Run the Outstanding Document Report for GSO and read only its GRN Stock In rows. On 31 March they total RM 186,240.00 over fourteen receipts.
Compare with the Creditor Not Invoiced balance, and with Inventory Not Invoiced once you allow for tax, as Best Practices §12 explains. At GSO both say RM 186,240.00: its goods bills carry no tax.
Ask the buyer about every receipt older than the supplier’s billing cycle. At GSO one receipt of RM 12,800.00 is 41 days old: the distributor billed it, and somebody keyed that bill as a standard Purchase Invoice instead of knocking a No Stock In invoice off the receipt — so the stock was counted twice, and the accrual never reversed.

You are done when every receipt on the list is younger than its supplier’s billing cycle or has a reason the buyer can give. On the standard pair there is no such account: the plain GRN posts nothing, and Stock Availability’s GRN quantity is the list from which the accountant decides whether the auditors need a manual accrual.

Purchases against the ledger

Use the Financial Report’s Stock Flow Report, Purchases and Purchase Returns rows, not the Purchase Report: it compares the finalised document lines with the journal lines on the default purchase accounts. Its document side includes input tax and its journal side does not, so a taxed month always shows a Difference. You are done when the Difference is the month’s input tax plus lines you posted to an item’s or a line’s own GL code on purpose; any MISSING_ACCOUNTING row is a document whose journal is missing.

The supplier statements

The supplier’s own monthly statement is the outside check on everything above. For each of the suppliers you owe most, the AP clerk sets it beside BigLedger’s Statement of Account for the same month. The usual differences are a bill the supplier sent that is not yet keyed, a payment the supplier has not applied, and a note keyed in the wrong direction: a Purchase Debit Note lowers what you owe and a Purchase Credit Note raises it, the reverse of how many suppliers name them (Core Concepts §6). You are done when each difference is a document on one side with a date that explains it.

A bill that arrives after you closed the month

On 9 April the Singapore distributor’s bill for USD 2,400.00, dated 24 March, arrives. Whichever date you key it on, some figure you already signed will no longer match, and deciding which is the accountant’s call:

Date it 24 March. The expense and the debt land in March, where they belong. But the March Purchase Report, re-run, now differs from the one you filed; today’s Outstanding Document Report includes it while the Historical Creditor Report for 31 March does not, unless your tenant runs the back-dated aging step; and the March trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet move only when Month End Processing is run for March again. Re-do the tie-out above for March.
Date it in April. March stays as signed, and April carries a March cost. Note it on the March working papers so the auditor sees why.

Either way, write down which you chose and why. The live reports will follow the date you keyed; the snapshots will not follow it on their own.

What has no report

No supplier performance or on-time-in-full report. Promised dates are on the order and receipt dates are on the GRN, but nothing compares them. The buyer exports PO Line with GRN KO each quarter, compares the two dates per line outside BigLedger, and takes the result to the supplier review.
No price variance report. There is no matching engine, so nothing records a variance. The knocked-off invoice shows the order’s price beside whatever the clerk changed it to; a variance is found by the AP clerk before FINAL, or afterwards with the Purchase Report and the purchase maximum price as above.
No approval pipeline report. Approval Request and Approval History inside the Purchase Order and Purchase Requisition applets are the whole of it, per applet. The finance manager reads both weekly and asks about anything waiting longer than a day.
No received-but-unbilled report on the standard pair. A plain GRN posts no accrual and reaches no purchase report; the Stock Availability GRN quantity column is what exists, read by the accountant at month end as above.
No spend-against-budget report in this module. Budgets are their own applet, and no purchasing report compares spend with them. The finance manager compares the Purchase Report by category with the budget each month, outside the purchasing applets.

When a figure looks wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
A No Stock In invoice shows a row of zeros on the Purchase Report	Its lines carry a quantity sign of zero, and the report multiplies by it — a known issue	Read spend for the Stock In pair from the ledger’s Purchases account until it is fixed
Unit Cost and Cost Amt empty on an invoice you finalised a minute ago	The costing job writes the average back after FINAL	Wait and re-run; still empty later, check the invoice’s Posting tab
GRN No blank	The invoice was keyed without knocking off a GRN	Look at Doc Link on the invoice; compare its price with the order’s by hand
A supplier’s bills are absent from the creditor reports	The supplier is on a receivable type, in that company and everywhere else	Correct the type and re-post the bills
The historical reports are empty for recent months	The monthly historical-aging clock is not installed or not Active in the Scheduler	Ask support to install it; months already missed are not filled in by it
A payment you made is missing from Payment Details	It has not been set against any bill yet — or it was set against a No Stock In invoice, which this report does not read	Find it on the Outstanding Document Report; if it is open, set it against the bill with a contra. If it settled a No Stock In invoice, read it on the Statement of Account instead
A supplier’s balance went up after you keyed a note for an overcharge	A Credit Note was keyed where a Debit Note was meant	Agree the correction with your accountant before the payment run
The same delivery is on the Outstanding Document Report twice, as a GRN Stock In and as an invoice	The bill was not knocked off the receipt	Void the invoice where permitted and re-key it as a No Stock In invoice from the receipt; or exclude GRN Stock In from the report, accepting that you lose the received-not-invoiced list

How you know the reports are telling you the truth

About ten minutes, on one bill, the first time you rely on these reports and after anyone changes the GL codes, the supplier types or the knock-off set-up:

Pick one bill finalised yesterday. Its Posting tab shows Journal and Inventory posted, and its line’s Costing Details shows an average. You are done when both are there.
Find it in the Purchase Report for yesterday with Date Type = transaction date. You are done when its Amount Net is the bill’s goods value and GRN No names the receipt it came from.
Find it in the Outstanding Document Report. You are done when its balance is the bill’s total less any payment set against it.
Find its journal in Ledger And Journal. You are done when the supplier line is on the creditor account for that supplier’s type, for the bill’s total.

If all four agree, the month-end tie-out above is a matter of totals. If one does not, that step names the setting to fix before you trust a month of them.

What these reports depend on, and what depends on them

What must exist first. The order-side reports exist only for knock-off pairs enabled in the company’s Knock Off Configuration. The creditor reports list a supplier only while it is a supplier on one of the four payable types — and the Outstanding Document Report only while it is flagged as a supplier. The historical reports need the Scheduler’s monthly clock. The cost columns need the costing job to have run, and the ledger side needs the company’s default GL codes for each supplier type — a missing one lets the bill go FINAL and fails only its journal.

What they make possible. Where the AP clerk plans the payment run from the Outstanding Document Report, a wrong balance there becomes a wrong payment. The month-end close and the auditors’ creditor listing come from the tie-out above, and Month End Processing then carries the month’s purchases into cost of sales.

The siblings, and when to choose which. The Purchase Report is for spend; the Creditor Report for what is owed; the Debtor and Creditor Report repeats the creditor set beside the debtor set for someone who looks after both; the Stock Report’s Stock Summary By Location counts purchases into each location from the stock ledger, so it answers what came in rather than what it cost — and a plain GRN not yet invoiced is in neither report. Inventory › Reports explains that side.

What breaks elsewhere when this is wrong. A supplier on a receivable type understates creditors and debtors together and still leaves a balanced balance sheet. A bill keyed as a standard Purchase Invoice against a GRN Stock In doubles the stock and leaves the accrual standing. A missing monthly snapshot leaves that month-end with no historical figures, and the clock does not go back for it.

What they pair with in practice. The creditor reports with Missing Journal before every close; Payment Details with Bank Reconciliation after every payment run; the Purchase Order Queue with the buyer’s weekly chase list.