AP Trial Balance Posting Date Problem

[carolamrt]

Someone here entered a large number of AP Invoices with a posting date of December 3, 2008.

Then they issued checks against them with a posting date of November 30, 2008.

Sounds pretty trivial to me, but the beancounters here are really upset and want this fixed somehow so that the payments are not in a period before the invoices.

Any recommendations? I would appreciate it.

 

[mas90consultant]

Being an ex bean counter, I can see the auditors getting mad at that. Did these AP Invoices have November or December invoice dates? We're the checks dated November or December?

 

[carolamrt]

Thanks. This was random. There were a lot more invoices that weren't misposted. Just someone being careless.

About $800,000 worth of invoices. Most of the invoices with December 3 posting dates had November invoice dates. So most likely the mistake is in the invoice posting date, not the check posting date. Probably all. Checks were actually issued in December, with posting dates in November.

We've had a lot of temps and new people.

I don't know what they plan to do.

 

[mas90consultant]

This seems to be a simple fix. A reversing journal entry can be done to place the AP expenses in the correct accounting period (November). As for the checks, if they had December check dates but a November posting date, then you can do a reversing journal entry can be done to properly show the outflow of cash in the correct accounting period (December). The AP invoice entry will be more lengthy than the AP Check entry. This may be too much accounting talk but this can be corrected without entering credit memos and voiding checks (which takes way longer). Basically, with a reversing entry, you have one opposite journal entry in the incorrect period (to reverse it) with a reversing date of the correct period. This is one entry in MAS90 but adding a reversing date makes it 2 entries (but half the work).

I used to fix this all the time when my AP clerk didn't understand the matching principle so there were timing issues non-stop. Issues like this will cause a mismatch between your AP Aging reports and the AP account in the General Ledger. Issues will also come up when reconciling the Bank Reconciliation module with the cash account in the General Ledger.